Trauma and the Failure of History

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By integrating history theory and trauma theory, Janzen explores the Books of Kings and Lamentations, revealing how Kings narrates the catastrophic Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, while Lamentations captures the raw experience of trauma survivors. He emphasizes that Lamentations resists any explanatory narrative, keeping the trauma alive in the present. Janzen argues for the importance of acknowledging this trauma in biblical interpretation and the historical accounts of ancient Israel, despite its inability to be fully integrated into the biblical narratives.