Thread by @vhobbs5

Once again, I'll be live tweeting this session, at least until I have to leave to do a school run. #CSBVcon22
Today's session focuses on Trauma and Scriptural Interpretation

https://twitter.com/CSBibleViolence/status/1529066587709489157

First talk is by Prof Brent Strawn - Our Trauma and God's Body: Another look at the cursing Psalms #CSBVcon22

Prof Strawn discusses the sin-suffering-violence and reconciliation-healing-recovery matrices and how they are related.
"Honesty about violence faciliatates recovery."
#CSBVcon22

2 aspects of honesty in OT:
1. Honesty about the violence done to Israel. Israel is candid about that.
2. Israel is honest about its own violence, its own participation in violence in particular ways.
"Israel's exemplary candour is imitable. It can be imitated and emulated."

Prof Strawn mentions how some translations edit out the strongest language in some of the Psalms, setting them aside for "further reading." This language can make us uncomfortable.
#CSBVcon22

Strawn: Psalm 137 might be president of the club of difficult texts. But "this Psalm emerges first out of violence done against Israel ... And that violence leads Israel to say some things about violence in turn and also to say some things about violence in return." #CSBVcon22

Psalm 137 is about great suffering, immense trauma. The atrocities done to people, to children, to animals and the environment in warfare. The suffering that comes out of violence. #CSBVcon22

Strawn:
Trauma often produces silence, affects memory. The need to speak about that experience is crucial. It's unspeakable yet somehow it must be spoken about. Denial is not effective and can produce profoundly destructive results.
#CSBVcon22

Strawn reading from the classic text:
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
Judith Herman

Psalm 137 speaks about unspeakable events, doing the work necessary to restore the social order.
Israel remembers God and remembers suffering. Israel also tells the truth about terrible events (destroyed Zion). #CSBVcon22

Strawn speaking about some of the most difficult verses in this Psalm.
"The Psalmist wants precise payback for the deed that has been done to her ... Verse 9 suggests that this last verse may not be simply some sort of unthinkable outburst, emotions run amuck, but ...

... a calculated strike, a carefully considered request for perfect payback, predicated on the call for justice.
The outcome that's hoped for in the future corresponds to a prior already-achieved outcome from the past. The poet's own child/children had been bashed against a rock.

Verse 9 is brutally honest (albeit a perhaps oblique reference to past violence against the poet's own children) but nevertheless a move towards recovery.
#CSBVcon22

Strawn: All this should have an effect on us.
These words are a means to help us now, as we think about our own trauma or the trauma of others. The OT's remarkable candour speaks back to our inhibition to tell the truth.
#CSBVcon22

Strawn talking a bit now about revenge fantasies, their typicality, lots of people have them. Judith Herman cites many examples of this in her work.
Revenge fantasies can be productive in attenuating the need for revenge.
#CSBVcon22

"Brutal candour, so often ignored in worship and in the Christian church, is actually a retelling strategy that is critical for recovery, crucial."

Strawn dipping into attachment theory to talk about how the Psalms can be a means to maintain a profound attachment to God. We run for help to those we are attached to. #CSBVcon22

Strawn: these impreccatory Psalms are so often neglected and in ways that actually contain and constrain violence. They prevent us from talking about the violence we see and suffer from.
#CSBVcon22

Strawn: The Psalms allow us to pray our enemies into God's hands with these words. But who knows what God will do? God has proprietary ownership over payback. At the end of the day, we don't imitate God in enacting revenge.

Strawn ends by reading three texts:
Romans 15:3-4 which cites an impreccatory Psalm, written for our instruction that we might have hope through healing and recovery
Psalm 58: People will say surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges the earth.

Final text
Psalm 76:10
Even human rage will turn to your praise when you dress yourself with whatever remains of your wrath.
#CSBVcon22

A wonderfully sensitive talk on a difficult topic - Accessible, engaging and yet so rich. #CSBVcon22