God, Gender, and Family Trauma: How Rereading Genesis Can Be a Revelation

Most readers of the Hebrew Scriptures will identify Genesis with creation and the garden of Eden, Noah's ark, and the tales of the patriarchs. Biblical scholar and Lutheran minister Cory Driver helps us probe below the surface of such preconceptions, uncovering complex and often traumatic subtexts that help us recover hidden voices. Driver uses trauma-informed scholarship and Jewish midrash to invite readers into new understandings of Genesis. Viewing figures such as Sarah, Joseph, Tamar, and Dinah through this lens sheds valuable light on what the Bible can teach us about gender and family trauma. These ancient stories have vital implications for our own lives in ministry.

What does it mean, for example, to see Sarah as both victim and victimizer in a patriarchal system? How does the complicated story of Lot and his daughters illuminate complex dynamics of gender-based sexual trauma? What do our accounts of figures ranging from patriarchs like Jacob to marginalized women like Tamar tell us about agency, abuse, and sense of self? What is really going on with Joseph? Through careful analysis and pastoral attention to the impacts of trauma throughout time and space, Driver helps us understand how ancient stories can inform our contemporary ministry. God sees the brokenhearted and crushed in spirit, both in the ancient Near East and in our pews today–and the good news is that God is intimately present. Consequently, in Driver's words, "trauma-informed care is the work of the whole Body of Christ."