Ezekiel and the Construction of Cultural Trauma

Abstract The book of Ezekiel may be effectively understood in terms Jeffrey Alexander’s theory cultural trauma, which catastrophic events take on a wider significance because they are perceived as having consequences for group identity. develops new master narrative Israelite history and identity, the catastrophes 597 586 BCE culmination generations moral religious offences against Yhwh, God Israel. Ezekiel’s constructs these profound Israel’s Those taken to Babylonia identified victims divine violence; victims, ones whom Yhwh has chosen true Israelites. distinguishes this Israel from remnants old one still Jerusalem, rejecting claim that latter members house According Ezekiel, an means deportee. Although few texts outside quite so overtly negative regarding history, its reckoning Jerusalem’s fall identity resonates throughout canon. With rare exceptions, experience deportation life became sine qua non identity: only those who had it could count themselves post-597 As construction therefore, was remarkably successful. Thereafter, were construed not simply practically politically catastrophic, but traumatic : placed them front centre, with indelible self-understanding.