A Trauma Theory Reading of the Book of Job

In this insightful and thoughtful book, Michelle Keener employs recent trauma theory to illuminate the structure and language of the ancient book of Job. Invited into the circle of Job's hearers, we become compassionate listeners to Job's shattered world and witnesses of his process of meaning-making. * Jill Firth, Ridley College, Australia * A timely, insightful, compassionate, and trauma-informed study of Job. Keener demonstrates how Job processes his overwhelming and incomprehensible loss through dialogue, metaphor, and divine encounter. Instead of abstract theodicy, Keener prompts the reader’s deep pastoral reflection on the God of all creation who witnesses and dignifies life’s pain and suffering. * Michael Wagenman, Cambridge University, UK * Using the lens of trauma, Michelle Keener ably re-centers scholarly attention on Job’s expression of one man’s particular experience of suffering. Engaging with existing scholarly debates, Keener opens additional avenues of research, inviting her audience to consider the way the biblical text makes meaning and how it continues to speak today. * Jennifer Brown Jones, Liberty University, US * The biblical Job’s saga has been subjected to divergent investigations. Michelle Keener applies the contemporary trauma theory to hermeneutically read the text of the ancient grief-stricken patriarch’s trauma narrative. She highlights how therapeutic-storytelling approach enhances holistic theological meaning-making of Job’s traumatic experience and unveils his homeostatic cognitive resolution. - * Joel Ajayi, Liberty University Rawlings School of Divinity, USA *