Hermeneutics of Trauma: Influences of Trauma Studies on Biblical Scholarship

The Psychoanalytical Origins of Trauma Studies

The early genesis of trauma studies can be found in the study of ‘railway spine’ experienced by railway workers in the 1860s (Anderson 2012: 4; Carr 2014: 255-56). However, psychological investigations of trauma victims did not truly take off until the 1880s, defined primarily by psychoanalytical studies of women experiencing what was then labeled as ‘hysteria’. While these studies highlighted the mental conditions of trauma victims, they did little to address either the stigma surrounding trauma or its causes (Anderson 2012: 5). Here, the emergence of psychoanalysis and the work of Freud enter the equation. Freud theorized that the instances of so-called hysteria resulted from repressed experiences of sexual assault. For Freud, it is the remembrance of the event that is most directly harmful (Freud 1952: 86; Balaev 2018: 361). Since the event causes psychological pain through its remembrance, trauma victims tend to either repress the memory or experience amnesia of it. The notion of a latency period between the event and its impact, along with ideas regarding trauma’s fragmentations of the psyche and causation of dissociation, continues to impact trauma studies (particularly literary trauma theory) significantly (Balaev 2018: 361).

Despite the overwhelming testimony of his female patients and his own initial convictions, Freud abandoned his theory on the connection between ‘hysteria’ and sexual violence. According to Herman (2015: 20), Freud feared the ‘radical social implications’ of this connection and instead pivoted to a form of victim blaming, claiming that his patients’ sexual abuse was actually a fulfillment of their desires. Alternatively, Fassin and Rechtman (2009: 32-34) argue that Freud’s original theory of hysteria contained two oppositional conceptions of trauma. One conception emphasized the external event as the source of trauma, while the other viewed trauma as already present in the psyche and merely awakened by the event. Therefore, Freud’s later shift was more the result of his increased emphasis on the latter conception of trauma at the expense of the former. Nonetheless, even with a theoretical framework in place, such a shift could well have been influenced by external pressures.

Whatever his motivations, Freud would return to trauma in his later work but would no longer explore its connection to sexual violence. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud actively distances hysteria from ‘traumatic neurosis’ even while acknowledging the overlap in symptoms (Freud 1923: 9-12). Similarly, it is significant that his example of trauma in Moses and Monotheism is the ‘traumatic accident’ of a railway incident and not an instance of sexual violence (Freud 1939: 121-22).

Freud’s repudiation of his own theory was part of a decline in interest in the connection between hysteria and trauma (Herman 2015: 21). The start of World War I and the prevalence of soldiers suffering from ‘shell-shock’ shifted interest in the study of trauma to the theatre of war (Anderson 2012: 5). While these shifting interests in studying trauma provided critical evidence and theories surrounding trauma, a formal area of ‘trauma studies’ did not truly emerge until much later. In the 1980s, with the classification of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the American Psychiatric Association in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), trauma studies emerged as a formal area of research (Anderson 2012: 5; Carr 2014: 260; Boase and Frechette 2016a: 3; Balaev 2018: 362). Largely the result of advocacy by and for Vietnam War veterans, the initial diagnostic criteria for PTSD were structured around experiences of and responses to warfare. Additionally, studies of Holocaust survivors influenced psychiatric work with veterans of the Vietnam War, and in turn influenced the diagnostic criteria that made their way into the DSM-III (Shephard 2001: 359-61).

Since its inclusion in the DSM, PTSD has been applied more broadly than its initial focus on warfare (Young 1995: 107-14; Leydesdorff et al. 1999: 5-6; Anderson 2012: 5). For example, almost immediately after its inclusion in the DSM-III, the classification of PTSD was connected with ongoing work in the feminist movement on sexual violence, noting the overlap between the symptoms of war veterans and survivors of sexual and domestic violence (Herman 2015: 34). With its broader application came revisions to the criteria and symptoms of PTSD, with the most recent DSM-5 relocating the condition from ‘Anxiety Disorders’ to the class of ‘Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders’ (Hamburger 2021: 56). The DSM-5 also describes for the first time exactly what it means to be ‘exposed’ to trauma, differentiating four types of exposure: direct exposure, witnessing trauma, learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to trauma, and repeated and extreme exposure to aversive details of trauma (American Psychiatric Association 2013; Hamburger 2021: 56). The DSM-5 is still primarily concerned with the diagnostic criteria of PTSD (overwhelmingly based on symptoms) rather than the definition of a ‘traumatic event’. However, it is nonetheless significant that the current psychiatric consensus suggests that a given traumatic event can have a significant impact even on those who are ‘indirectly’ exposed to it.

Literary Trauma Theory: The Caruthian Model

Trauma studies entered the realm of literary theory in the mid-1990s in a movement primarily led and dominated by the work of Caruth (Balaev 2018: 363). While Caruth is perhaps the most influential scholar of this movement (hence my use of the phrase ‘the Caruthian model’), she is not the only scholar to have advanced psychotherapeutic approaches to literary texts. Other influential works include Felman and Laub (1992), as well as Tal (1996). However, and especially regarding biblical scholarship, Caruth remains the most influential member of this movement.

Caruth’s (1996) Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History built upon and interpreted the psychoanalytical work of Freud to emphasize an understanding of trauma in relation to memory and communication. In analyzing Freud’s Moses and Monotheism and Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Caruth argued for several key aspects of the trauma experience. The oft-emphasized notion of trauma as the ongoing impact of an unrecoverable event is undoubtedly central to Caruth’s Freudian understanding of trauma (Balaev 2018: 363).

One central notion of Caruth’s understanding of trauma is the notion of latency. In analyzing Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, Caruth emphasizes his use of the term ‘latency’ to describe the delay between an actual event (‘the accident’) and the traumatic impact of the event (Caruth 1996: 17). Freud’s example refers to the survivor of a railway accident who escapes ‘apparently unharmed’ from the event itself, only to develop symptoms weeks later (Freud 1939: 121-22; Caruth 1996: 16). He suggests that such an ‘incubation period’ for physical wounds might also be present for mental wounds. However, in Caruth’s interpretation of Freud, the experience of trauma consists not merely of the forgetting of a reality after the fact but ‘in an inherent latency within the experience itself’ (Caruth 1996: 17). Essentially, a traumatic event is not even recognizable (or recoverable) at its occurrence. The event itself is not fully experienced in the moment, but it is ‘only in and through its inherent forgetting that it is first experienced at all’ (Caruth 1996: 17). When considering trauma, the emphasis is not placed on a particular event but instead on the forgetting of the event, and then its repeated, latent experience.

The experience of an event through its forgetting points to the paradoxical nature of the trauma experience: how the very incomprehensibility of an event at its occurrence continues to haunt the victim after the event (Caruth 1996: 4). In Caruth’s words, ‘What returns to haunt the victim . . . is not only the reality of the violent event but also the reality of the way that its violence has not yet been fully known’ (1996: 6). It follows, then, that the narrative of the event can serve a healing function while also revealing the ‘reality’ of the traumatic event. Therefore, trauma literature engages in ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’ (Caruth 1996: 7). The resulting paradoxical nature of trauma makes it such a complex yet captivating concept in literary studies.

The paradoxical nature of trauma also contributes to Caruth’s understanding of how trauma intersects with history. In her chapter on Moses and Monotheism, Caruth argues that a traumatic history is not ‘straightforwardly referential’ (1996: 11). This is not to say that trauma makes history unrecoverable. However, it does mean we cannot have a fully comprehensible history of a traumatic event. In addressing what makes a history traumatic, Caruth argues that such a history ‘can be grasped only in the very inaccessibility of its occurrence’ (1996: 18). Put simply, Caruth seems to be arguing for an extreme reading between the lines when approaching a history of trauma. Her example, of course, is Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, in which Freud proposes that a hidden trauma (murder) underlies and organizes the history of the Jewish people (Freud 1939: 63-65; Caruth 1996: 14-15). Caruth then goes further to suggest that Freud’s own reading of Jewish history might itself be ‘a self-referential history that many have read as the story of Freud’s “unresolved father complex”’ (1996: 16). When speaking in literary and historical terms, trauma cannot be recovered through a straightforward reading. Instead, it is in precisely what is not said, that which influences but remains unspoken, that we can identify trauma. As Caruth puts it, we should permit ‘history to arise where immediate understanding may not’ (1996: 11).

Psychoanalytical understandings of trauma, such as Caruth’s, have been heavily critiqued over the past 20 years. Leys offers a particularly comprehensive critique of the Caruthian model in her manuscript Trauma: A Genealogy (2000: 229-30, 270-92), while Fassin and Rechtman (2009:19) have critiqued Caruth’s universalization of the trauma experience as ‘trivializing’ trauma. Nonetheless, the Caruthian model remains highly influential across multiple disciplines. In terms of literary criticism, Caruth provides a stable framework for analyzing what is, in the end, the very unstable and little-understood notion of trauma. In biblical scholarship, Caruth’s engagement with trauma and memory, especially her notion of the non-referential nature of traumatic history, heavily influences trauma hermeneutics.

Volkan: Chosen Traumas

Volkan’s notion of ‘chosen trauma’ shares several significant overlaps with Caruth’s work, even as his focus is not so much on memory as it is on large-group dynamics. More specifically, Volkan has a more practical orientation to his work, with much of his theory based on his participation in diplomatic discussions to end large-group violence (Volkan 2021: 18). This focus results in both significant overlaps and substantial differences with the other theories of trauma discussed in this overview. Volkan first coined the term ‘chosen trauma’ in an article for the journal Mind and Human Interaction (1991), and it became popularized after the publication of his book Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism (1997). However, Volkan’s interest in chosen trauma is not so much about better understanding traumatic events and how we respond to them. Instead, chosen trauma serves to underpin Volkan’s larger theory around the causes of, and solutions to, large-group violence.

Like Caruth, Volkan relies heavily on psychoanalysis for many of his theories. His notion of large-group identity is certainly no exception to this. While Volkan uses the term large-group identity quite frequently, he is not so concerned with the creation and maintenance of large-group identity (on the anthropological or sociological level) as he is with the impact of given group identity on the psyche of the individuals within that group. Volkan’s most recent discussion of large-group identity underscores this focus, as he discusses only the ways in which connection to a larger group influences an individual’s sense of self (Volkan 2021: 19-20).

Building on psychoanalytical theories of group psychology and individual identity, Volkan understands large-group identity from the individual outward, as ‘tens of thousands or millions of people, most of whom will never know or see each other, and who share a feeling of sameness’ (2013: 210). Volkan explains the function and nature of large-group identity by building on Freud’s theory of large-group dynamics. He uses the metaphor of a tent, in which individuals are gathered around a central pole (the ‘maypole’ in Freud’s theory, symbolizing the leader), which upholds the tent canvas that envelops and protects the group (Volkan 2013: 221). For the most part, people wear their individual and group identities simultaneously, with both going largely unnoticed. However, during times of collective stress, the individual seeks the protection offered by the large-group identity (Volkan 2001: 83-84). A significant way in which large-group identity is reinforced in the individual is through chosen trauma.

For Volkan, the category of chosen trauma is rather narrow. He is not concerned with all collectively traumatic events. Instead, two defining characteristics enable a given traumatic event to become a chosen trauma. The first is that only events perpetrated by an ‘other’ (another large group) on the members of a given large group, in the name of large-group identity, can ‘evolve into a chosen trauma in the future’ (Volkan 2021: 18). Once such an event occurs, members of a group must face multiple psychological challenges, including dehumanization, humiliation, guilt, narcissistic investment in large-group identity, and difficulty or inability to mourn losses. If members of a given group are unable to find adaptive responses to these challenges, they are passed on to the next generation and evolve, over time, into chosen traumas (Volkan 2013: 232).

This process points to the second characteristic necessary for a given traumatic event to become a chosen trauma: it must be a historical event. Reminiscent of the latency notion in Caruth’s work, Volkan argues that the transgenerational inability to process a trauma leads to a given event evolving into a chosen trauma (2013: 234). Essentially, the incomprehensibility of the traumatic event for the first generation results in the ‘tasks’ of trauma being passed down to the next generation, who are also incapable of fully comprehending the trauma and thus pass it on to the next. This creates a cycle in which the ‘core task’, keeping the mental representation of the event alive, becomes central to the large-group identity. The mental representation of the event becomes the chosen trauma generations after the actual event. However, the activation of a chosen trauma results in a ‘time collapse’, in which the emotions and reactions associated with the chosen trauma are applied to the current situation of the group (Volkan 2013: 234-39).

While Volkan’s primary concern is not with defining trauma or the experience of trauma, his notion of chosen trauma serves as an example of how psychoanalysis can be applied to collective experiences of trauma. While Volkan does not make a sharp distinction between individual and collective trauma, his theory contains similarities with both Caruth’s literary theory of trauma and the sociological notion of cultural trauma. A key insight gained from Volkan, which we will see again with cultural trauma theory, is the close relationship between group identity and collective trauma.

Erikson: Communal Trauma

While neither Caruth nor Volkan emphasizes a clear distinction between individual and communal trauma, the sociologist Erikson articulated a distinction between the two types of trauma well before Caruth’s work. And although Erikson’s work has not been as influential in biblical scholarship as Caruth’s, his understanding of communal trauma is an essential bridge from psychoanalytical understandings of trauma to sociological ones. Erikson (1976) first emphasized the difference between individual and communal trauma in his account of the Buffalo Creek flood entitled Everything in Its Path. He later refined and expanded upon this notion of communal trauma in a collection edited by Caruth (Erikson 1995). As Erikson mentioned in his ‘Notes on Trauma and Community’, his thoughts on communal trauma are taken mainly from his work with communities following disasters—from Buffalo Creek to an Ojibway Indian reserve in Ontario (1995: 183). While his observations are drawn from multiple communities, the community of Buffalo Creek and the work that turned into Everything in Its Path most significantly inform his views on communal trauma. By my count, Erikson mentions the Buffalo Creek catastrophe or his report on it sixteen times in ‘Notes on Trauma and Community’. The next most frequently referenced incident, Three Mile Island, only occurs six times, often to reinforce observations made from the Buffalo Creek incident. In contributing to the legal case for damages to be paid to the Buffalo Creek community, Erikson formulated an argument for a unique aspect of trauma that specifically impacts communities as a whole, regardless of whether each individual member experienced the trauma first-hand (1976: 9-17).

In discussing the trauma of the survivors of the Buffalo Creek flood, Erikson argues that they experienced trauma in two distinct but interrelated facets. He defines the first, individual trauma, as ‘a blow to the psyche that breaks through one’s defenses so suddenly and with such brutal force that one cannot react to it effectively’ (here we see aspects of the Freudian notion of trauma so heavily present in Caruth’s work) (Erikson 1976: 153). By contrast, the second facet, communal trauma, consists of ‘a blow’ that damages the social bonds within a community and ‘impairs the prevailing sense of communality’ (Erikson 1976: 154). Erikson uses this term, communality, to emphasize that it is not simply the ‘village territories’ that constitute communal trauma. Instead, it is the loss of ‘the network of relationships that make up their general human surround’ (1976: 187).

For Erikson, communal trauma takes longer to materialize than individual trauma but is no less damaging. While communal trauma damages communality, it can also develop into a central component of a given community if the trauma becomes widely shared. As Erikson explains it, ‘the shared experience becomes almost like a common culture, a source of kinship’ (1995: 190). The critical distinction here is that communal trauma does not result from a collection of individuals sharing similar individual traumas. It is not a view of community that moves from the individual to the community. Instead, Erikson’s view of communal trauma moves from community to individual. It emphasizes how communal trauma breaks the connections between members of a community and threatens the communal identity and protection offered by that community (Erikson 1995: 190). In Erikson’s words, ‘“I” continue to exist, though damaged and maybe even permanently changed. “You” continue to exist, though distant and hard to relate to. But “we” no longer exist as a connected pair or as linked cells in a larger communal body’ (1976: 154). While individual and communal trauma are closely connected and perhaps even interdependent, they are not one and the same. While each individual member of a community may experience their own traumatic reaction to a given event, there also exists a separate communal trauma that may threaten the very fabric of that community’s existence.

Cultural Trauma Theory

Of the various forms of social-scientific approaches to communal trauma, cultural trauma theory has had the most significant impact on biblical studies. Cultural trauma theory originated from a year-long project undertaken by a group of scholars at the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (Eyerman 2021: 37). While a collaborative effort, Alexander quickly emerged as the primary torchbearer for the theory, which was developed as a framework for studying instances of communal trauma. It has been utilized broadly since its first comprehensive articulation in the edited volume Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (Alexander et al. 2004). While often considered to mark the genesis of cultural trauma theory, this work was the result of multiple years of sociological and psychological research undertaken by the authors. This is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the publishing of Eyerman’s (2001) work on cultural trauma and the memory of slavery 3 years prior.

While different in kind and measure from the work of Erikson and Caruth, cultural trauma theory nonetheless builds on and is influenced by their work. Specifically, cultural trauma theory exists as an extension of Erikson’s differentiation between individual and communal trauma (Alexander 2004: 4,6; Eyerman 2021: 38). However, a key departure point for cultural trauma theory lies in whether a traumatic event is inherently traumatic. For Alexander and his fellow cultural trauma theorists, many approaches to trauma engage in what he terms the naturalistic fallacy. This so-called fallacy is essentially the realist approach to trauma, which considers a traumatic event inherently traumatic. Instead, cultural trauma theorists embrace a constructivist view of trauma, arguing that traumatic events must be argued for and recognized as such by a collective (Alexander 2004: 8). While mythical events can become cultural trauma events, the constructivist approach does not argue that a given cultural trauma event is not ‘really’ traumatic. Instead, a given harmful event does not become recognized as traumatic by a given group without undergoing a socially driven process. This social process of constructing a traumatic event is called the ‘trauma process’ (Alexander 2004: 10-11).

A vital component of the trauma process is the existence of a carrier group. Cultural trauma theorists maintain that collectives do not make decisions as a whole but rather do so through influential agents. Thus, for any given event to be considered traumatic, a carrier group must successfully argue its case. Carrier groups have specific interests behind their claim-making as well as the means to articulate their claims (Alexander 2004: 11). These groups can fit several molds and need not be societal elites. However, they do require the necessary discursive talents to make their arguments (Alexander 2004: 11). The relationship between the carrier group and the audience is similar to that of a speech-act, where the carrier group functions as the speaker. The carrier group attempts to connect to their audience, utilizing aspects of the environment (historical, cultural, and institutional) to make the case that the community has been traumatized by a singular event (Alexander 2004: 11-12).

In making a case for a given traumatic event, respective carrier groups create a so-called ‘master narrative’ around which the community can mobilize. This master narrative attempts to address four critical dimensions: the nature of the pain, the nature of the victim, the relation of the victim to the wider audience, and the attribution of responsibility (Alexander 2004: 12-15). The effectiveness with which a given carrier group addresses these dynamics helps to determine whether and by whom a given event is recognized as traumatic. If the master narrative is accepted by the broader community, the group’s identity is irrevocably altered around the experience of the now-traumatic event (Alexander 2004: 22).

This final point is heavily influenced by what Alexander refers to as ‘institutional arenas’ and ‘stratificational hierarchies’. All instances of the trauma process occur within given institutional arenas and are influenced by hierarchical realities related to resources and access. The institutional arenas are defined as religious, aesthetic, legal, scientific, mass media, and state bureaucracy. Any attempt to construct a trauma meta-narrative exists within these realities and must either contend with or benefit from them (Alexander 2004: 15-22). Thus, while carrier groups themselves need not be societal elites, power differentials play an important role in the trauma process. For this reason, certain events may be recognized as traumatic within a particular community, even as the broader group or society may reject the trauma narratives. Eyerman’s (2004) chapter in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity demonstrates this reality. While slavery and its legacy became a central component of Black American identity, this did not extend to the broader, predominantly white American society until at least the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (Eyerman 2004: 78). Respective Black carrier groups had sufficient influence within Black American culture. Still, they could not influence a broader swath of American society due to their lack of control over many of the necessary institutional arenas. The degree to which a given trauma process can influence the identity of a group is thus heavily influenced by the access that carrier groups have to institutional arenas.

Cultural Trauma Theory and Psychological Trauma

As is implied by the above overview, cultural trauma theory is not so much concerned with the experience of a traumatic event as it is with the memory of that event. Experience of the event itself is not necessary for a community to identify as traumatized by a given event. Instead, it is the memory of the event, through the constructed master narrative, that signifies its traumatic nature. In this way, cultural trauma indirectly relates to Caruth’s more Freudian understanding of trauma, wherein it is the remembrance of the event that produces a traumatic effect (Eyerman 2004: 62). While Caruth approaches this concept from a different vantage point (including, significantly, a more realist framework), it nonetheless underscores the importance of memory and recollection (individual or communal) in the experience of trauma. Furthermore, the trauma process takes time, and it is not until some time after an event has occurred that it becomes recognized as traumatic. In this sense, cultural trauma theory also embraces the notion of latency. However, unlike the Caruthian model, this latency originates from the process of claiming a traumatic event rather than that event’s unclaimable nature (Smelser 2004: 49-50).

Cultural trauma theory’s connection to psychological trauma is more substantive than one might initially think. This can be seen in Smelser’s (2004) contribution to Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Smelser notes the significance of affect for psychological trauma and cultural trauma. Just as individual victims of trauma experience harmful and disruptive effects, so those who identify with a given cultural trauma find their personal identity threatened and can experience similar effects. Therefore, the ‘language of affect’ is central to both psychological explorations of trauma and the cultural trauma process (Smelser 2004: 39-41).

Furthermore, Smelser references Caruth’s notion of trauma as an unhealable wound in highlighting the indelibility of trauma. Similar to the Caruthian notion of trauma ‘haunting’ an individual, Smelser notes how the memory of a cultural trauma can ‘flare up’ when new social pressures challenge a community (Smelser 2004: 41-42). It is also significant that Smelser provides what remains one of the theory’s most comprehensive definitions of a cultural trauma event: ‘a memory accepted and publicly given credence by a relevant membership group and evoking an event or situation which is a) laden with negative affect, b) represented as indelible, and c) regarded as threatening a society’s existence or violating one or more of its fundamental cultural presuppositions’ (Smelser 2004: 44).

The origin of this definition out of Smelser’s interactions with psychology illustrates the close connection between cultural trauma theory and psychological theories of trauma. Even though Alexander derides the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ that he finds present in much discourse on trauma (2004: 8-10), the constructivist nature of cultural trauma theory does not necessarily divorce it from its cross-disciplinary kin.

The two preceding approaches to trauma are by no means the only ways in which trauma has been studied in the humanities and social sciences. They are, however, the two most influential theories of trauma for biblical scholars, and their differences can heavily influence how one approaches the text. As Boase notes, whether a given scholar utilizes a cultural trauma framework or one more based around Caruth’s psychoanalytical approach can ‘lead to fundamentally different understandings of the way trauma is encoded within (biblical) texts and the implications of reading texts as trauma narratives’ (Boase 2024: 10). As we turn to the development of trauma hermeneutics in biblical scholarship, we will see how these two theories will play a central role in scholars’ understanding of how the ancient biblical authors responded to and framed traumatic experiences.

Trauma and Exile

An early entryway into examining trauma and biblical texts was the analysis of exilic literature. Interest in the influence and presence of trauma on biblical texts took the form of psychological explorations of the prophet Ezekiel (see, for example, Halperin 1993). However, these works were primarily interested in psychological and psychoanalytical analyses and diagnoses of the historical prophet. Thus, any mention of trauma was more a by-product than a primary focus. One of the earliest explicit connections between the interdisciplinary study of trauma and biblical literature is found in Smith-Christopher’s (2002) A Biblical Theology of Exile. However, Smith-Christopher’s focus is still on the psychological diagnosis and treatment of PTSD and its applicability to the prophet Ezekiel (2002: 89-94). Subsequent work expanded the application of trauma beyond the psychological diagnosis of PTSD.

Linafelt’s (2000) notion that Lamentations 1-2 could be read as survivor literature opened the door for trauma-oriented investigations of that book. By ‘survivor literature’, Linafelt means ‘literature produced in the aftermath of a major catastrophe and its accompanying atrocities by the survivors of that catastrophe’ (2000:18). This notion was strengthened and expanded by O’Connor’s commentary on Lamentations (2002). Garber’s overview covers Linafelt’s and O’Connor’s work in some detail (2015: 29-31). However, their work is still worth acknowledging again as it set the stage for Boase’s subsequent (2016) exploration of Lamentations and trauma. Initially focusing on the book as a communal expression of pain and suffering (2008), Boase eventually built on her previous work and that of Linafelt and O’Connor to argue for reading the book through a lens of cultural trauma (2016). For Boase, Lamentations seeks to orient a fragmented community around a shared experience of trauma, ‘reflecting the emergence of a new metanarrative shaped by trauma’ (2016: 64). Unlike the previously mentioned overviews of Lamentations, Boase’s treatment goes beyond viewing Lamentations as a ‘witness to trauma’ and views the book and its community as active participants in creating a trauma narrative (2016: 64). More recently, Boase (2021) has argued that Deuteronomy participated in this response to trauma, with Lamentations and Deuteronomy representing differing, but not necessarily competing, voices in response to trauma. Similarly, Yansen’s look at Lamentations (2019) and the image of ‘Zion’s daughter’ engages with literary, psychological, and social trauma to provide a comprehensive, trauma-centered reading of Lamentations.

While Lamentations is perhaps the most explicit example of ‘trauma literature’ in the biblical corpus, trauma studies have also featured heavily in discussions of the exilic prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. As mentioned previously, Ezekiel has long garnered the interest of scholars from a psychological/psychoanalytical perspective. Likewise, biblical scholars have found the book to be a clear example of trauma literature. Garber (2015: 31-32) details the advent of this phenomenon in his discussion of both his own work and that of Yee (2003), Bowen (2010), Poser (2012), and Kelle (2013). Yee’s and Garber’s work on Ezekiel is particularly illustrative of the Caruthian influence on early trauma hermeneutics. In her work on misogynistic symbolism in the Hebrew Bible, Yee utilizes the Caruthian model to argue that the violent, pornographic content of Ezekiel 23 is part of a response to the trauma of exile, conceived of as Judah’s ‘symbolic castration’ (Yee 2003: 120-34; see especially, pp. 120-122). Similarly, Garber (2004), building on the aforementioned works of Linafelt (2000) and Smith-Christopher (2002), argues for reading Ezekiel as trauma literature. In doing so, Garber advocates for using the Caruthian model to better understand the prophetic book (rather than the prophet). Garber notes that the multivalent and indirect references to the destruction of Jerusalem can be read as an example of Caruth’s notion of traumatic history not being ‘straightforwardly referential’ (2004: 224). Garber also references Erikson’s distinction between communal and individual trauma to argue for the presence of both forms of trauma in Ezekiel (2004: 224; see Erikson 1976: 9-17). Finally, he notes three advantages of reading the prophetic book in conversation with trauma theory: it avoids the tendency to ‘diagnose’ the historical prophet, it helps to explain the ‘strange and multifaceted’ images of the text, and it can help us understand why a community might adopt ‘ethically problematic texts’ (2004: 229).

Since Garber’s (2015) overview, scholars have continued to utilize trauma theory as either a partial or central lens through which to read Ezekiel. Of particular note is the work of Smith-Christopher (2017) and Furman (2020). Both works illustrate a more overt focus on collective trauma in biblical texts. Smith-Christopher argues that Ezekiel 37’s ‘Valley of Bones’ vision can be best understood as a ‘counter-narrative in response to trauma’ (2017: 408). In making this argument, he also reflects on how the increased understanding of intergenerational trauma has allowed for a greater appreciation of the impact that traumatic events (such as the destruction of Jerusalem) can have on communities (2017: 407). Similarly, Furman (2020) utilizes sociological theories of migration and displacement to argue for communal post-traumatic symptoms in the prophet’s oracles, prophecies, and speeches. While neither work fully engages with sociological theories of communal trauma, they nonetheless foreground communal trauma in a more explicit manner than in the earlier manifestations of trauma hermeneutics. Crouch’s (2022) work on Ezekiel continues this trajectory toward a communal trauma focus while relying on cultural trauma theory. For Crouch, Ezekiel represents an attempt to construct a trauma master narrative around the Babylonian exile. Relying especially on Ezekiel 20, she argues that the historical retelling presented in Ezekiel situates the exile as a uniquely traumatic event in Israelite history. Moreover, this event restructured Israelite identity in such a way that, according to Ezekiel, only those who experience the trauma of exile could truly be considered Israelite.

In terms of Jeremiah, one work has proven to be especially influential. O’Connor’s (2011) Jeremiah: Pain and Promise approaches both the text and trauma studies from a new perspective. Though covered in some detail by Garber’s overview, this work is worth revisiting for laying the groundwork for many subsequent trauma-informed readings of Jeremiah. O’Connor’s truly innovative approach lies in her overview of the historical background of the prophetic book through a series of fictional short stories of families in Jerusalem during the second Babylonian invasion of Judah. According to O’Connor, trauma studies help one recognize Jeremiah’s ‘fire and brimstone’ rhetoric as central to its ‘powers to lead toward rebirth of the shattered people of Judah’ (2011: 5). This approach is also grounded in O’Connor’s trauma lens, as she argues that pure historical facts do not truly convey the historical experience of trauma (O’Connor 2011: 7). Finally, O’Connor argues for reading Jeremiah as ‘a work of interpretation’ in line with the interpretation necessary for trauma victims to process and overcome their memories of violence (2011: 47). Viewing Jeremiah as an attempt to interpret a traumatic experience sheds light on some of the more difficult and disturbing aspects of the book. Notably, O’Connor argues that the war poems of Jeremiah served to ‘remember, express, and reframe the nation’s collective, violent past’ (2011: 48). Furthermore, the rape language of Jeremiah could be understood as utilizing a language of horror to ‘speak what cannot be spoken’ (O’Connor 2011: 55). In an interesting and perhaps unintentional contrast to labeling texts as ‘trauma literature’, O’Connor refers to Jeremiah as a work of resilience, underscoring her general view of Jeremiah’s healing potential (2011: 135).

Since O’Connor’s initial foray, Jeremiah has drawn significant interest from biblical scholars due to its traumatic nature. As Stulman (2016: 126) notes, ‘no other prophetic text pulsates with as much raw pain’. Claassens, for example, has written extensively on Jeremiah and trauma. Building off O’Connor’s work, Claassens argues that trauma studies can help readers to responsibly engage with the troubling and violent nature of Jeremiah’s oracles against the nations (2017a). She also argues for reading the Book of Jeremiah as a trauma narrative, with the prophet as a leading character (2021a). Elsewhere, Claassens has argued for reading Jeremiah’s Temple, Covenant, and Sabbath sermons as examples of cultural trauma, with Jeremiah as the representative of the carrier group (2017b). Maier (2020) makes a similar argument for Jeremiah 40-44. Most recently, Boase (2024) has utilized Jeremiah as an interpretive testing ground for various theories of trauma, highlighting how each understanding of trauma can influence the interpretation of a given biblical text.

While the aforementioned works focused on texts explicitly referencing, or clearly drawing from, the trauma of the Babylonian exile, other works have focused on the far-reaching implications of exilic trauma in the text. Notably, Carr’s (2011) essay ‘Reading into the Gap: Refractions of Trauma in Israelite Prophecy’ argues that the lack of direct reference to the Babylonian exile in much of the biblical prophetic corpus is, in fact, a result of the trauma of the exile. Furthermore, this ‘gap’ suggests that the core trauma of the exile may not have been the destruction of Jerusalem or the Judaean state, but the experience of exile itself (Carr 2011: 296-7).

While Carr’s essay, which is discussed at length in Garber (2015: 33), focuses primarily on prophetic literature, he broadens his argument to other texts in his monograph Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins (2014). Carr expands the consideration of a traumatic background for biblical texts beyond the exile itself, noting the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians, their subsequent domination of Judah, and the ‘Hellenistic crisis’ under Antiochus IV as additional traumatic events that shaped the Hebrew biblical corpus. For the Babylonian exile, focusing on the non-referential nature of traumatic history helps explain evidence of trauma in texts that do not reference the exilic experience as explicitly as Ezekiel and Jeremiah, even while still being closely connected to it, such as Deutero-Isaiah (Carr 2014: 81-90; Frechette 2016).

Trauma in and Beyond Exile

As Garber demonstrates in his overview, biblical scholars have found trauma studies applicable beyond those texts most associated with the Babylonian exile (2015: 34-37). Of course, delineating between ‘exilic texts’ and ‘non-exilic’ texts can be challenging, especially from a trauma perspective. As Carr notes, much of the Hebrew Bible is composed, edited, and compiled by the exilic community and their descendants (2014: 75). Combined with other instances of trauma (communal or individual) within and behind the text, it is no surprise that scholars have moved beyond primarily focusing on clearly exilic (or exilic adjacent) texts through a trauma lens. In his work on the Deuteronomistic history, Janzen (2012: esp. 45-63) argues that the DtrH as a whole should be read as a double narrative, in which the so-called ‘master narrative’ is undermined by the intrusion of trauma. More recently, Guest (2018) has challenged Janzen’s conclusion as it relates to the book of Judges, arguing that the humor, literary artistry, polyphony, and dating of Judges suggest less of a traumatic influence on the text. It should be noted that, as the work of Emanuel (2017; 2020a) demonstrates (see below), humor and trauma are not mutually exclusive in biblical texts. However, Guest argues that the type of humor in Judges is not the sort of ‘gallows humor’ one might expect from a traumatized author or community (2018: 58).

Since the publication of Garber’s article, scholars have explored multiple pre-exilic prophets through a trauma lens, often in relation to the Assyrian domination and eventual destruction of Israel and their subsequent domination of Judah (Claassens 2018; Esterhuizen 2018; Groenewald 2019a; Kelle 2025; see also Carr 2014: 26-40). Scholars have also engaged sections of Genesis through a trauma lens, highlighting the potential for a traumatic background to these texts (O’Connor 2016: esp. 305-13; Claassens 2021b). O’Connor’s (2018) commentary on Genesis heavily emphasizes the traumatic elements in and behind the text. Similarly, Carr nods to the traumatic background of the Priestly primeval history in his commentary on Genesis 1-11 (2021: 79-80), as well as that of the non-P flood narrative in his manuscript on the formation of Genesis 1-11(2020: 242-3; see also Carr 2024).

Scholars have also used trauma theory to read harder-to-date texts. As noted by Garber (2015: 35), Balentine (2008) has read the phrase ‘for no reason’ in Job 2.3 as a way for the author to ‘traumatize’ the narrative and situate it within the post-exilic attempt to process the trauma of the exilic experience. For Balentine, the statement is both a traumatizing concession to reality and a traumatizing assertion by the narrator (2008: 222-23). More recently, Keener (2025) has argued for reading the final form of the book of Job as a trauma narrative. Keener’s argument is particularly fascinating regarding the connections she makes between cognitive dissonance and the structure of prose and poetry in Job (2025: 27-62).

Helsel (2016) uses Erikson’s notion of communal trauma to argue that Qohelet serves as a reflection of, and response to, communal trauma, seeking to repair the damage to communality. Similarly, Emanuel (2017) utilizes Erikson’s definition of communal trauma as a launching point for exploring Esther as a humorous ‘counter-trauma and post-traumatic wish fulfillment’ (2017: 24). Groenewald (2019b) uses trauma theory to explain what he refers to as the ‘redaction of the poor’ at the end of the first two books of the Psalter—a redaction that he views as responding to the trauma of the postexilic social crisis in Judah. Verde (2024) has also recently engaged with the question of trauma in the Psalms, providing a comprehensive evaluation of what he refers to as ‘psalms of trauma’. Notably, Verde utilizes cultural trauma theory to argue that the communal laments in books 2 and 3 of the Psalter contributed to efforts to preserve the Babylonian Exile as the formative cultural trauma for descendants of exiles (2024: 107-24). Along similar lines, Kim (2020) uses cultural trauma theory to argue that Habakkuk attempts to expand the trauma of the Babylonian exile beyond its temporal occurrence and convince post-exilic generations to identify as traumatized. While not using trauma as her primary lens, Cottrill (2021) relies on the contributions of trauma hermeneutics in her work on violence in the Hebrew Bible. This is especially true of her discussion of Sisera’s mother in Judges 5 and the notion of moral injury (Cottrill 2021: 55-62; see also Cottrill 2014).

There has also been a tendency to connect the trauma within and behind the text to contemporary instances and works of trauma. Claassens (2020a), for example, highlights the ‘insidious trauma’ present in both Genesis 29-30 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This throughline highlights the persistence of gender, race, and class-based oppression while also providing methods of resistance. Dickie (2019) looks at how biblical lament might be used to help heal trauma memories, while West (2016) notes how the protest passages in Job could help validate the marginalized voices of South Africans with HIV/AIDS. For more examples of contemporary connections, see the essays in part three of Boase and Frechette (2016b) as well as Claassens (2020b).

Trauma and the New Testament

While much of this article is focused on the application of trauma studies to the Hebrew Bible, an overview of biblical trauma hermeneutics would not be complete without some attention to its application in the New Testament. Garber’s initial overview similarly provides a glimpse of the New Testament trauma landscape (2015: 37-38). This overview will provide an updated picture of the more recent influential works in New Testament scholarship.

A logical bridge from the Hebrew Bible to New Testament studies is Carr’s (2014) Holy Resilience, the latter part of which focuses on the traumatic origins of the New Testament. For example, Carr notes that the early reactions of Christ’s followers to his crucifixion drew on traumatic portions of the Hebrew Bible, such as Hosea, the suffering servant imagery of Deutero-Isaiah, and Deuteronomy (2014: 163-69). Carr also discusses Paul as a ‘traumatized disciple’, whose traumatic background might help to explain the contradictions in his theology—and, by extension, early Christianity (2014: 174-94). In terms of the New Testament, Carr is particularly concerned with connecting the theme of trauma back to the Hebrew Bible, emphasizing how these earlier traumatic texts are utilized under new traumatic circumstances.

Perhaps the most apparent instance of trauma in the New Testament is the crucifixion of Jesus. As Collicutt notes, ‘the central trauma [of the New Testament] is the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus of Nazareth’ (2012: 45). It is no surprise, then, that New Testament scholars have applied trauma theory to the crucifixion narratives of the New Testament. Dube (2013), for example, argues for reading Mark’s narrative of the crucifixion as an example of cultural trauma. However, trauma-informed readings of the NT are not limited to the passion narratives. Hogeterp (2020) examines the story of the man possessed by Legion in Mk. 5.1-20 in light of the trauma of Roman occupation. Hays and Acosta (2020) have advocated for reading portions of Acts, along with Judges, as collective trauma narratives. Paul’s letters have also received attention, such as Polaski’s (2008) reading of Paul’s mysterious ‘thorn in the flesh’ in 2 Corinthians 12 as representing an unclaimed trauma.

The work of Reinhartz perhaps best illustrates the potential insights trauma hermeneutics promises for the New Testament. Reinhartz (2015) uses the Caruthian model of literary trauma theory to argue that the incarnation of Christ is the central trauma of the Gospel of John. However, Reinhartz does not argue that the incarnation is a negative event in the Gospel. Instead, she focuses on the definition of trauma as involving an event that is ‘disorienting and destabilizing’ (2015: 47). In doing so, Reinhartz rejects both the crucifixion and the methodologically problematic theory of Synagogue expulsion as candidates for the central trauma for the fourth Gospel (2015: 39). Furthermore, Reinhartz argues that this central trauma of the incarnation serves to create a division between those who believe in the incarnation and the ‘other’ who deny it, promising them pain and death. For Reinhartz, this traumatic restructuring of identity helps explain John’s anti-Jewish tendencies (2015: 46-47).

In addition to her Johannine exploration, Reinhartz (2014) also offers a compelling use of cultural trauma theory concerning the early Jesus community in general. In engaging with the question of whether the early community of Christ-followers viewed the destruction of the temple in 70 CE as a traumatic event, Reinhartz (2014) demonstrates the significance of carrier groups in the trauma process. After surveying multiple patristic and New Testament texts, she concludes that, while some Jewish Christ-followers viewed the event as traumatic, the movement’s leaders actively worked against recognizing the destruction as a traumatic event (Reinhartz 2014: 286). Reinhartz thus identifies what we might call an ‘anti-trauma process’, wherein the leaders of the early Jesus movement actively worked against orienting their identity around the temple’s destruction. As Reinhartz notes, this refusal to identify the Temple destruction as a traumatic event might indicate that the so-called ‘parting of the ways’ between Christ-followers and Judaism may have begun earlier than is often theorized (2014: 286).

For Reinhartz, an exception to the ‘anti-trauma process’ in the New Testament may be found in Revelation (2014: 285). Along similar lines, Emanuel (2020a) argues for Revelation as a Jewish, postcolonial text that uses humor to respond to the trauma of Roman imperial occupation. An important component of Emanuel’s work includes her use of postcolonial trauma theory (2020a: 64-74, esp. her discussion of postcolonial critique of trauma theory: 64-67). In addition to her treatment of Revelation, Emanuel (2020b) utilizes an innovative trauma lens for her comparative reading of Atwood’s Alias Grace and the Gospel of John. Relying heavily on the work of Herman, Emanuel argues that the lasting, but unclaimable, aspect of trauma can be seen in what she refers to as ‘posttraumatic hauntings’ (2020b: 337). By reading an overtly post-traumatic text such as Alias Grace alongside John’s Gospel, Emanuel identifies the presence of ‘posttraumatic hauntings’ throughout the Gospel. Of note is her suggestion that John’s passionless passion narrative may, in fact, be an example of repressed trauma (2020b: 342-46).

The differences between Reinhartz and Emanuel’s approaches highlight an aspect of trauma hermeneutics that was present when Garber first published his overview and persists still. While Reinhartz identifies a particular aspect of trauma studies (whether Caruthian or cultural trauma) and consistently applies it across her reading of a text, Emanuel takes advantage of the diversity of trauma studies to sample from multiple theorists at a time. I highlight this distinction not to lift one approach above another but to emphasize again the diversity of methods for applying trauma studies to the biblical text. This diversity is one of the main drivers behind both the promise and the limitations of biblical trauma hermeneutics.