Moral Injury and Biblical Studies: An Early Sampling of Research and Emerging Trends

Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies

The recent exploration of moral injury within biblical studies fits into the broader context of biblical criticism’s use of perspectives from psychology in general and trauma theory in particular (on psychological biblical criticism overall, see Kille 2001). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, biblical scholars studying the experience of the Babylonian exile and the materials resulting from or shaped by it in the Hebrew Bible began to apply insights from trauma theory to yield new interpretations (for a survey of research on trauma theory and biblical studies, see Garber 2015; for a critical review of biblical scholarship’s use of trauma theory, see Janzen 2019a). Some key works focus on the dynamics of trauma in relationship to the experience of the exile and the formation of biblical texts generally (Smith-Christopher 1997, 2002; Carr 2014; Janzen 2013, 2019b). Other studies apply insights from trauma research to particular texts across the Hebrew Bible (see the collected articles in Boase and Frechette 2016). Poetic and prophetic texts closely related to exile receive special attention in this regard. Linafelt (2000) and O’Connor (2002) apply trauma theory to Lamentations. Many works bring trauma perspectives to bear on Jeremiah (e.g., O’Connor 2011) and Ezekiel (Smith-Christopher 1999; Garber 2004; Kelle 2009, 2013; Bowen 2010; Poser 2012), especially given the troubling and sometimes strange portrayals of the prophets themselves and their explicit connections to individual and communal suffering.

Two elements of trauma study particularly relate to the emerging use of moral injury within biblical scholarship. Trauma studies has increasingly stressed the recognition of communal dimensions of trauma sometimes referred to as cultural trauma, collective trauma, or social trauma (e.g., Erikson 1991; Alexander et al. 2004; Saul 2014). These dimensions involve the effects of traumatic experiences on a community’s self-understanding, identity, and practices, including the disruption, diminishment, or disintegration of the community’s culture, the effects of which become evident over time (see Carr 2014: 8-9, 264-65). This research has also highlighted the communal nature of recovery and healing in which the community becomes a repository for reconstructing identity and a means of building resilience and creating adaptations (Saul 2014; for the application of this notion to the exilic biblical literature, see Smith 1989). Likewise, moral injury works have emphasized not only the ability of communities to experience collective moral pain but also the key importance of communities in the process of responsibility-taking and moral repair (see especially Shay 2002; Sherman 2015). Practices of recovery from moral injury need to include ways to share the moral burdens and build communal honesty and acceptance.

The second element of trauma studies that relates to the emerging considerations of moral injury involves the recent so-called somatic turn (see Rambo 2010; van der Kolk 2015). Alongside the cognitive and literary approaches to trauma, this turn emphasizes how bodies and physicality are involved in both trauma and its healing. The body itself remembers the trauma, so recovery must involve bodily practices. This approach relates to the long-standing emphasis within moral injury work that bodily enacted rituals and symbolic practices serve important functions within the recognition, prevention, and healing of moral injury, especially injury experienced through the physicality of war (e.g., Shay 2002: 244-45; Brock and Lettini 2012: xviii). Overcoming shame, guilt, grief, social disconnection, and other effects of moral injury must involve more than cognitive processes, and attention to ritual dimensions of the biblical texts have provided a point of connection with moral injury work in this regard (e.g., Ramsay 2018; Geringer and Wiener 2019; Kelle 2020a: 97).

Moral Injury: Definitions, Symptoms, and Healing

The primary background for the recent exploration of moral injury within biblical studies is the general work on moral injury that has taken place within psychology, veterans care, and related fields. These areas have largely provided the dominant definitions of moral injury, along with explanations of its nature, causes, symptoms, and recovery practices. Moral injury today remains an emerging concept, but the starting point for the work has been the conviction that although the label is recent, the experience it represents is ancient. The recognition that the dangers and damages of war are not limited to physical injuries and may involve moral and ethical dimensions appears in diverse literary, artistic, religious, and philosophical contexts throughout various historical eras. Specific work on moral injury began with Shay’s books Achilles in Vietnam (1994) and Odysseus in America (2002), both of which grew out of his efforts as a Veterans Affairs (VA) psychologist with Vietnam veterans. Thereafter, work on moral injury has emerged at a staggeringly fast rate, especially since 2009, with academic analyses, clinical studies, firsthand accounts by veterans, and other discussions appearing in works from clinical psychology, military studies, moral philosophy, chaplaincy resources, general-audience books, and journalistic publications such as the New York Times and the Huffington Post (see citations of sample works in the discussion below). Two characteristics of general moral injury research are notable as groundwork for the engagement with biblical studies. First, the efforts to understand and address moral injury thus far have had a decidedly interdisciplinary character; second, those working on moral injury in these ways have often drawn from perspectives in religion, theology, and sacred texts (see Kelle 2020a: 1-4).

As noted above, the label moral injury describes, in a basic sense, the result of the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world), often but not exclusively reflecting the deleterious effects of war participation on moral conscience and ethical conceptions. Moral injury involves acts of moral compromise or the violations of values and beliefs that can lead especially soldiers to lose the ability to trust in their own moral goodness or in the morality of others and the world. A comprehensive and technical discussion of the current understandings of moral injury is beyond the scope of this article, and numerous surveys of past and present approaches are available (see especially Shay 2002; Litz et al. 2009; Drescher et al. 2011; Boudreau 2011–12; Brock and Lettini 2012; Sherman 2015; Wiinikka-Lydon 2019; Griffin et al. 2019; Kelle 2020a: 19-35). However, a few elements of current research on moral injury are relevant for the consideration of the engagement between moral injury and biblical studies.

There is currently no single, agreed-upon definition of moral injury, nor of the precise experiences that cause it, the effects that result from it, and the best strategies to overcome it. The Journal of Traumatic Stress recently devoted an entire issue to moral injury, including articles outlining conceptual challenges, methodological issues, and diagnostic models (Litz and Kerig 2019). Several other recent volumes offer collections of articles that attempt to understand and engage moral injury from various perspectives in different disciplines (Meagher and Pryer 2018; Kelle 2020c; Papadopoulos 2020). An ongoing issue concerns the question of moral injury’s relationship to PTSD—a starting point for early attempts at definition and understanding. Over the last two decades, scholars have questioned whether PTSD—a psychological disorder featuring a fear-victim response—accounts sufficiently for aspects of war’s aftermath that go beyond emotional wounds and adjustment disorders to include moral and ethical sensibilities. Moral injury shifts the focus from suffering or witnessing traumatic events to the consequences of perpetrating or inflicting harm or killing on others. Debate continues today, and recent studies articulate the relationship between moral injury and PTSD differently, with varying degrees of overlap (cf. Litz et al. 2009; Nash and Litz 2013; Currier et al. 2019).

One now finds a multitude of formal, particularly clinical, definitions of moral injury that have been proposed by psychologists and other researchers especially since 2009. Kelle (2020a: 183-85) provides an appendix listing sixteen different definitions offered in the literature. The two articulations that have shaped the discussion appear in the works of Shay (1994, 2002) and Litz and his research team (Litz et al. 2009). The differences between the foundational definitions reveal a shift that has occurred. Shay’s original formulation focused on the betrayal of trust by authorities as the primary element of moral injury. He defined moral injury as a betrayal of ‘what’s right’ by someone who holds authority in a ‘high-stakes situation’ (1994: 208). In this understanding, an individual may commit morally questionable actions, but these occur because the person was betrayed by someone who held legitimate authority and yet acted immorally and unethically. From this perspective, moral injury began as a critique of military structure and leadership, with an important social and political dimension (see Wiinikka-Lydon 2017).

The later formulations in Litz et al. (2009) shifted the definitional focus to acts done by the soldier that violated her or his fundamental moral convictions: ‘Perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations may be deleterious in the long-term, emotionally, psychologically, behaviorally, spiritually, and socially’ (Litz et al. 2009: 695). In this understanding, the initial element of political and social critique concerning betrayal recedes in favor of an emphasis placed almost entirely on the soldier and individual actions as the cause of moral injury. The most recent definitions of moral injury try to take account of both the aspects of betrayal and perpetration as different types of the same experience (see the survey in Kelle 2020a: 26-28).

The same kind of diversity exists within current articulations of moral injury’s causes, effects, and healing (or repair). At the most basic level, moral injury is caused by doubt, especially doubt over the necessity, justness, and nobility of actions or the trustworthiness and rightness of authorities and situations (Bica 2016: 73). More specifically, clinical psychology has now produced metrics for evaluating the potential causes of moral injury (e.g., the ‘Moral Injury Events Scale’, Nash et al. 2013). The core cause of moral injury is a person’s inability to contextualize, justify, or accommodate morally challenging actions in her or his understanding of self and the world, thus resulting in moral dissonance, conflict, and despair (Litz et al. 2009: 696); this cause may also involve a sense of divine betrayal in which experiences of violence, unethical leadership, and morally suspect circumstances and actions lead to the feeling that God is unjust, has been overcome by evil, or simply does not exist (Currier, Foster, and Isaak 2019). Other effects of moral injury include both internal (distorted values and self-condemnation) and external (lost sense of an ordered and just world or loss of social relationships) elements. The effects may be emotional, psychological, spiritual, and social. Clinical research has also produced matrices for identifying specific effects of moral injury (‘Expressions of Moral Injury Scale—Military Version’, Currier et al. 2017; ‘Moral Injury Symptom Scale—Military Version’, Koenig et al. 2018).

Corresponding to the causes and effects, contemporary work in psychology, counseling, and chaplaincy has proposed a variety of ways to respond to moral injury and work toward moral repair. Major clinical programs now exist (e.g., ‘Adaptive Disclosure’, an eight-session clinical intervention; see Litz et al. 2016). Four items often appear in discussions of healing moral injury (Kelle 2020a: 34-35): 1) learning forgiveness for self and others; 2) contextualizing events; 3) distributing responsibility fairly; and 4) engaging in acts of repair and hope. The practices commonly highlighted in these approaches constitute elements that biblical scholars have engaged in the dialogue between moral injury and biblical texts. These include ceremonies and rituals (especially related to symbolic purification after war) and ‘communalization’ that builds community through shared responsibility and participation (Shay 2002: 245; Sherman 2015: 161).

Although moral injury has its origins in work with veterans and war-related contexts, recent years have seen the significant expansion of the concept into a variety of non-combat settings (for theoretical discussion, see Wiinikka-Lydon 2019). Publications in several fields have applied the notion of moral injury to contexts such as prisons (especially mass incarcerations and solitary confinement; Lynd and Lynd 2017; van Willigenburg 2020), journalists covering refugee crises (Feinstein, Pavisian, and Storm 2018), and medical workers (recently, the particular context of the COVID-19 pandemic; Murray, Krahé, and Goodsman 2018; Williams, Brundage, and Williams 2020). As the following discussion will show, thus far, most engagements of moral injury within biblical scholarship have concentrated on war-related texts. However, the use of moral injury in expanded contexts, with its critical consideration of the moral dimensions of many different types of violence, environments, and social, political, and interpersonal dynamics, has already allowed for broader application within fields such as spiritual care and Christian counseling (e.g., Ramsay 2018), and will create new possibilities for the engagement between moral injury and a variety of biblical texts (see Kelle 2020a: 176-78 and several contributions in McDonald 2017).

Moral Injury in Fields Related to Biblical Studies

A third background element for exploring moral injury within biblical scholarship is the way that related fields such as religious, pastoral, and theological studies have engaged moral injury. The relevant literature is already impressively large after only a few years, especially in connection with chaplaincy work. At times, these engagements have used biblical texts, and some examples of those will be included in the section on biblical studies to follow. For background, however, works in these fields have engaged in cross-disciplinary conversation with moral injury from a variety of perspectives, even without specific or extended use of biblical texts. A diverse collection of spiritual and pastoral care engagements with moral injury appears in the volume Military Moral Injury and Spiritual Care (Ramsay and Doehring 2019). For similar approaches, see Brock and Lettini (2012), Graham (2017), Lee (2018), Childs (2018), and Moon (2019). The particular area of chaplaincy (especially military chaplaincy) has given special attention to moral injury (see the review survey in Carey et al. 2016; see also Hodgson and Carey 2017).

Beyond the ministerial contexts, academic theology, Christian ethics, and studies of religion and culture have also made connections with moral injury. Powers (2019) uses Augustinian theology (especially the notion of sin as human will exercised in the pursuit of created things that are wrongly loved in place of God) to approach moral injury as not only a violation of conscience but a fundamental distortion of a person’s understanding of what constitutes a moral world and moral character. Wiinikka-Lydon (2017) highlights the social, ethical, and political critique that is inherent within the notion and experience of moral injury. In a similar vein, Denton-Borhaug (2017) has used moral injury to interrogate the valorizing and legitimation of war, sacrifice, and suffering within American society and religious culture.

The Bible and Moral Injury Outside of Biblical Scholarship

The first category of works that show the interaction of the Bible and moral injury consists of publications from non-religious disciplines such as psychology, military studies, historical studies, moral philosophy, and even journalism that have referred directly to biblical texts, especially in their discussions of the effects and healing of moral injury. For the most part, these uses of the Bible have been minor, usually in passing as part of a discussion devoted to moral injury in general or some particular facet of or context for it. The works sometimes appeal to the Bible’s cultural importance in American society in particular and sometimes to its status as an ancient cultural text, but do not typically engage the biblical texts in systematic or sophisticated ways or use the methods and perspectives operative within the discipline of academic biblical studies. Some examples here simply draw principles from the teachings of scripture and apply them to moral stress and repair. For example, Grimsley and Grimsley (2017: 33-35) identify forgiveness as a biblical principle and propose it as a key for healing moral injury. In this same vein, they also highlight Deuteronomy’s teaching on remembering and the role of forgiveness in the passion narratives in the gospels (p. 67).

More frequently, moral injury works within this category employ references to the Bible in their discussions of the potential role of rituals and symbolic practices in moral repair. Moral injury research from its beginnings in psychology and veterans care has emphasized the need for returning soldiers (and others affected by the realities of warfare) to make a healthy and marked transition from combat to non-martial contexts (see survey in Kelle 2020a: 71-74). The need is to provide parallel experiences to the boot camp that first integrated soldiers into the military culture, and thus to help soldiers reengage with social, communal, and family relationships and daily life on the other side of combat. In so doing, the transitional practices also need to help soldiers deal with grief and loss, or even to accept responsibility and experience forgiveness where needed (e.g., Tick 2005: 3; Bica 2016: 96-97; Yocum 2016: 34; Lee 2018: 112; Moon 2019). Toward this end, moral injury research over the last decade has increasingly looked to rituals and practices from ancient cultures and traditional societies (and their surviving writings) for models (e.g., Shay 2002: 244-45; Brock and Lettini 2012: xviii; Yocum 2016: 34-35; Graham 2017: 135-52). Researchers often emphasize rituals and practices that center on the goals of providing returning soldiers (and the larger community) with a sense of purification or forgiveness (Shay 2002: 245; Lynd and Lynd 2017: 31) or create a ‘communalization’ of the moral burdens and their effects (Brock and Lettini 2012: 65; Sherman 2015: 19, 161).

Several psychologists and other researchers have identified rituals from biblical texts (as well as other ancient writings) as possible models for contemporary use. Shay (2002: 152) explicitly mentioned the Israelite post-battle purification ritual in Numbers 31, and others have highlighted similar post-battle practices in this regard (Tick 2005: 3; 2014: 194-98, 206-207; Wood 2016: 5; Graham 2017: 135-52). Overall, these references have been an attempt to address the need expressed by psychologists and other researchers to identify a number of models from wide-ranging sources. Other psychologists, approaching the Hebrew Bible writings as artifacts of an ancient culture, have used the Bible in a slightly different manner. These works often focus on particular biblical characters, especially Saul, David, and Job, and read them as allegories for soldiers’ experiences (e.g., Tick 2014: 91-93, 111-15, 199-202; Larson and Zust 2017: 164). The approach represented here is similar to Shay’s (1994; 2002) initial formulations of moral injury that compared the experiences of American veterans of the Vietnam War to the literary depictions of warriors in the Iliad and the Odyssey (especially Achilles and Odysseus) (see the similar use of Greek mythological texts and characters in Meagher 2006; 2014: 5-8; Sherman 2015: 81-97, 114-24). Tick (2014: 60) places the ‘Old Testament’ alongside the Iliad as one of ‘Western civilization’s founding epics’ and ‘war Bibles’. Grimsley and Grimsley (2017: 36-49) read the Joseph story (Gen. 37–50) as the tale of a person morally wounded by experiences other than warfare and as an example of the importance of memory and forgiveness in moral healing.

The second category of works that show the interaction of the Bible and moral injury consists of publications from fields closer to but still distinct from biblical scholarship, especially religious studies, theology, Christian ethics, spiritual/pastoral care, and chaplaincy, which use biblical texts directly and specifically in their discussions (see survey in Kelle 2020a: 37-41). The method of engaging the biblical texts here is similar to that used in the non-religious fields noted above. The engagements are often undeveloped, mostly drawing principles from the teachings of scripture and applying them to moral stress and recovery. Some also point to biblical rituals and characters as potential models and lessons, especially approaching the Bible as a cultural artifact in touch with the realities of war. Lee (2018: 27, 100-101) proposes that biblical texts can provide ‘meaning-making’ instructions for finding hope, forgiveness, and purpose. Larson and Zust (2017: 164) pay attention to Saul and David, as well as the New Testament stories of the Roman centurions and their encounters with Jesus in Luke and Acts, to explore military behavior in the context of moral injury (pp. 160-92). Frank (2013: 181-82) reconsiders Jacob’s wrestling (Gen. 32.22-32) as his struggle with the moral injury he suffered in a series of betrayals that started with his birth family.

Many of the works in this second category have particularly referenced the psalms, especially the lament and penitential psalms, as resources for dealing with the grief, confession, honesty, and forgiveness involved in moral repair (Brock and Lettini 2012: 26; Graham 2017: 135-57; Lee 2018: 110-11; Liebert 2019: 51-53). For example, Childs (2018: 115) notes that the biblical lament psalms may provide language for the morally injured to speak honestly about their experiences as a means to healing. Others point to the use of certain psalms for the expression of feelings of shame, guilt, betrayal, and anger, or the incorporation of lament into corporate rituals and public memorials related to moral injury. Brock and Lettini (2012: 26) recount the story of a military chaplain who had struggling soldiers read Psalm 51 as a forgiveness liturgy and the imprecatory psalms (e.g., Ps. 137) as ways to express the mood, tone, and feelings of having been betrayed. From within spiritual/pastoral care, Ramsay (2018) suggests that the laments found in the Hebrew Bible psalms are key resources for facilitating grieving and building resilience for both the sufferer and for those who would bear witness to the sufferer’s testimony (see also Fawson 2018 on ‘witness poetry’). At a more general level, Geringer and Wiener (2019) offer one of pastoral care’s most extensive engagements with the Bible, especially within the Jewish tradition. They explore biblical narratives and characters, as well as Jewish rabbinical and liturgical texts, for references to spiritual brokenness and wounds.

The Bible and Moral Injury within Biblical Scholarship

Very recently, a small but growing number of works within the discipline of biblical scholarship have engaged elements of moral injury in dialogue with the interpretation of biblical texts. This constitutes the third category of works that show, in this case, the most direct interaction of the Bible and moral injury. Thus far, biblical scholars have primarily used moral injury as a heuristic to bring out new meanings for biblical passages of various kinds. That is to say, for the most part, the focus within biblical studies has remained on the biblical texts themselves, rather than on the effort to set forth what or how the biblical texts might contribute to the ongoing work on moral injury in other fields.

By way of a convenient, if somewhat oversimplified, organizational typology, the works that have appeared within biblical scholarship so far fall into two primary trajectories concerning the use of the Bible in conversation with moral injury (see Kelle 2020a: 39-41). The first trajectory appears more frequently than the second one. The first, and most prominent, trajectory reflects the tendency noted above to use moral injury as an interpretive lens for reading biblical texts. This trajectory offers creative, literary re-readings of biblical narratives and their characters informed by elements and perspectives from moral injury, and often portraying biblical characters as morally injured persons. The second trajectory explores the identification, importance, and implementation of postwar rituals and symbolic practices in the Hebrew Bible (and its ancient Near Eastern contexts), informed by insights on moral injury’s prevention and healing and with consideration of how these biblical rituals and practices might connect to the felt needs of those affected by moral injury.

As the preceding discussions of backgrounds and other fields of study have shown, both of these trajectories within biblical studies follow practices long-established in general moral injury research, especially when that research has engaged ancient texts as conversation partners or resources. The first trajectory, for instance, is akin to the use of ancient Greek epics and characters (e.g., Achilles, Odysseus, Heracles, and Ajax) that appeared in the moral injury works of Shay (1994, 2002) and others (e.g., Meagher 2006; Sherman 2015: 81-97, 114-24). Likewise, the second trajectory reflects the various moral injury works within different disciplines that have explored rituals and practices from ancient and traditional societies and their surviving writings for potential models for addressing the needs of moral stress and repair (e.g., Shay 2002: 244-45; Brock and Lettini 2012: xviii; Sherman 2015: 161; Graham 2017: 135-52). Some of the ritual and symbolic acts considered in moral injury discussions involve positive, redemptive actions of wellbeing designed to counter involvement in war’s destructiveness (e.g., service projects, communal acts of kindness). Most of the discussed rituals, however, involve acts that symbolize cleansing or forgiveness for the sake of transitioning out of combat contexts. Both types of rituals and symbolic actions have appeared in recent biblical studies discussions. One overall observation related to the two main trajectories stands out in the comparison between works within biblical scholarship and those within other fields. As the following survey will show, to this point, works within biblical scholarship have tended almost completely to fall within the first category focused on narratives. By contrast, works within fields such as psychology, veterans care, pastoral care and counseling, and chaplaincy began with an emphasis on re-reading narratives (see Shay 1994, 2002), which has continued to a lesser extent (e.g., Meagher 2006; Frank 2013; Sherman 2015), but have largely tended to fall within the second category focused on rituals and symbolic practices (see the works cited above, especially Shay 2002: 244-45; Brock and Lettini 2012: xviii; Yocum 2016: 34-35; Graham 2017: 135-52).

To date, my recent monograph entitled, The Bible and Moral Injury: Reading Scripture Alongside War’s Unseen Wounds (Kelle 2020a), is the only book-length study dedicated solely to the intersection of biblical interpretation and moral injury. The book contains chapters that offer detailed investigations of both of the major trajectories evident in the field more generally, and these will be discussed in their appropriate places below. The monograph also includes a detailed summary of moral injury in general, as well as discussion of how moral injury work bears upon the long-standing perennial issue of the theological and ethical difficulties raised by the Bible’s (especially the Hebrew Bible’s) texts depicting war and violence undertaken by God or God’s people (at God’s command).

Concerning the first, and most prominent, trajectory of creative, literary re-readings of narratives and characters in dialogue with moral injury, several recent works within biblical scholarship have attempted to do with Hebrew Bible stories what Shay and others have done with ancient Greek epics. The book-length collection, Exploring Moral Injury in Sacred Texts, edited by McDonald (2017), contains several works that fit into this trajectory. Bowen (2017; see also Bowen 2020) re-examines the troubling acts in the Sodom story in Genesis 19 as the possible consequences of previous moral injury suffered by the people of the city in the war described in Genesis 14. She then uses insights from moral injury research to interpret the subsequent reconnection between some Israelites and Lot’s descendants (in Moab) described in the book of Ruth as a narrative example of moral repair. Blumenthal (2017) re-reads the character of David in the books of Samuel and Kings as a basic model of the experiences of return and repair after morally injurious actions. He places a special emphasis on David’s personal moral failure, acceptance of guilt over his actions, and efforts to repair the harm (with special focus on the David and Bathsheba story in 2 Sam. 11–12). He asserts that the very experience of moral injury, particularly as a result of war and violence, is a sign of a healthy person whose conscience is functioning. From a New Testament perspective, Yandell (2017; see also Yandell 2020) reinterprets the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5 as a veteran of the Roman military and thus explains the man’s isolation, self-harming, and aggression in terms of the consequences of moral injury experienced through his previous war participation. He emphasizes how the text’s description shows that the man’s identity has been conflated with his previous role as a member of the Roman military (the ‘Legion’). Yandell uses the story’s conclusion to make the theological and ethical claim that the injury will not be removed but that the community itself must acknowledge the reality of moral injury and the humanity of the person affected. Carter (2017; see also Carter 2020) also focuses on texts from the New Testament gospels. He interprets the portrayals of Peter and Judas in Matthew and John as stories of moral injury in non-military contexts, which results from the betrayal of one’s own moral code and values. Seen in this way, the texts depict Peter as finding moral healing, but not Judas, whose life ends in suicide (Matt. 27).

The recent collection for which I served as editor, Moral Injury: A Guidebook for Understanding and Engagement (Kelle 2020c), also contains some works by biblical scholars that fit into this first trajectory of re-reading biblical narratives and characters. Bowen (2020), Yandell (2020), and Carter (2020) each reprise their earlier textual studies on Sodom (Gen. 19), the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5), and Peter and Judas (in Matthew and John) with minor modifications. Cottrill (2020) uses the story of Jael and Sisera in Judges 5 to explore the intersection between moral injury and the humanization of the enemy in military rhetoric and experience. She pays particular attention to the narrative’s gripping portrayal of Sisera’s mother waiting and hoping for her son’s return from battle, not knowing he has been killed. This moment of humanity depicting the grief and loss to be experienced by the mother occurs in the midst of the celebratory tone of the Israelites’ victory. The portrayal makes it harder to dehumanize the enemy and complicates the ethical reflections on the perpetration of violence against enemies in war.

The longest and most detailed example of the first trajectory to date appears as part of my recent monograph on the Bible and moral injury (Kelle 2020a: 43-67). I ask if the story of King Saul (1 Sam. 9-31), in which Saul has often been interpreted as a psychologically disturbed or tragic figure, might be read in dialogue with insights from moral injury research as the tale of a morally wounded warrior showing the effects of moral trauma on character, social trust, and personal survival. For example, perhaps the opening events of Saul’s reign in 1 Sam. 12–15 reveal experiences in which Saul suffered moral injury—most notably, in his encounters with the authority figure, Samuel. He attempted what he thought to be the proper actions under the circumstances—for example, refusing to neglect the needed pre-battle sacrifice (ch. 13)—only to be told repeatedly that the actions were inadequate and improper for reasons that were not always fair or coherent. Saul often learned after the fact (and in the harshest way) that many of his deeds actually violated the moral and ethical demands at the core of his identity as Yhwh’s anointed. Might we imagine that Saul experienced a sense of the betrayal of trust by his prophetic and divine authorities? Might we then view the king’s problematic dispositions and increasingly unstable and violent actions across the remaining chapters in 1 Sam. 17–31 as consequences of moral injury—negative changes in ethical behavior and attitudes, loss of spirituality, reduced trust in others and social contracts, and feelings of guilt and shame? In Saul’s story, these consequences manifest themselves as failed relationships with his daughters and son, distrust of his own men, suspicion of and violent rage against innocent bystanders, and a spiral into despair and isolation.

Within biblical studies, the second trajectory of the identification and exploration of postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in the Hebrew Bible (and its ancient Near Eastern contexts) in dialogue with moral injury has been much less prominent to date. By contrast, as noted above, moral injury work in psychology, ethics, and veterans care, as well as in spiritual care, pastoral theology, and chaplaincy, has engaged this ritual trajectory more than the narrative one. Publications in these fields have sometimes used biblical texts (in various ways and to varying degrees) as part of their discussions about rituals and practices related to moral injury (see works cited in the section on the Bible and moral injury outside of biblical scholarship). From the perspectives of biblical scholarship, the goal would be to examine specifically the Hebrew Bible’s war-related rituals and symbolic practices for their potential intersections with moral injury. The aim would be to analyze the relevant biblical passages in their textual, historical, and cultural contexts in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East, as well as through the use of ritual theory, as academic biblical studies would typically do. This analysis would then allow for consideration of how the ancient rituals described in the biblical texts might become resources for understanding moral injury and accomplishing moral repair.

I have attempted to explore this trajectory for biblical texts in three publications (Kelle 2014, 2017, 2020a). I identify five categories of postwar rituals and symbolic acts in the Hebrew Bible for possible consideration in dialogue with moral injury (Kelle 2020a: 69-137): 1) purification of warriors, captives, and objects (e.g., Num. 31.13-24); 2) appropriation and redistribution of spoils (e.g., Gen. 14.17-24; Num. 31.25-47; Josh. 6.24; 22.7-9; 2 Sam. 8.9-12); 3) construction of memorials and monuments (e.g., Num. 31.48-54; Josh. 6.24; 1 Sam. 5.1-8; 1 Chr. 18.7-8); 4) celebration or procession (e.g., Exod. 15.1-18, 20-21; 1 Sam. 18.6-9; Ps. 68.21-27); and 5) lament (often corporate) (e.g., 2 Sam. 1.19-27; Pss. 44; 60; 74; Lam. 5; Joel 1.2–2.17). The examination of each category includes how the rituals and practices appear in texts from other ancient Near Eastern cultures, what they might have meant to those who engaged in them (or, at least, preserved their memory), and how they might connect to the expressed needs for addressing moral harm and healing. For example, Num. 31.13-24 is the only explicit example of the post-battle purification of warriors, captives, and objects in the Hebrew Bible, but these rituals are very well-attested in several comparative contexts (e.g., Hittite, Egyptian, Ugaritic, Akkadian, and modern tribal societies; see Kelle 2020a: 77-86). The ritual in Numbers 31 is part of the Hebrew Bible’s priestly tradition, and seems to identify killing in warfare as a defiling activity, even when done with proper justification or under divine authority. Here one can see a direct connection with the well-established emphasis within moral injury work from a variety of fields that some sense of purification after battle is needed in today’s practices of the return and reintegration of soldiers (especially as a means of dealing with feelings of shame or guilt).

My contribution to McDonald’s Exploring Moral Injury in Sacred Texts (Kelle 2017) examined the Hebrew Bible’s references to the appropriation and redistribution of spoils after battle (see now also Kelle 2020a: 79-81, 86). This act is the most widely attested postwar practice in the biblical and extrabiblical sources. Two different kinds of actions appear in the Hebrew Bible texts: the redistribution of spoils among combatants and noncombatants (e.g., Num. 31.25-47; Josh. 22.7-9; 1 Sam. 30.21-25), and the dedication of spoils into sanctuaries (e.g., Num. 31.50-54; Josh. 6.24; 2 Sam. 8.9-12). For both cases, I explore possible ways that these redistribution practices might have served, even implicitly, to reframe and communalize the local and specific encounters of combat within larger communal perspectives—one of the oft-noted needs in relation to moral stress and repair.

As a final example of this second trajectory within biblical scholarship, the analysis in The Bible and Moral Injury (Kelle 2020a: 104-37) includes a discussion of biblical laments, especially war-related communal laments in historiographical texts (e.g., 2 Sam. 1.19-27; 3.33-44; 18.33), the book of Lamentations, and the psalms (e.g., Pss. 44; 60; 80), against the background of their ancient Near Eastern parallels (e.g., Sumerian city laments). The discussion of these biblical texts corresponds to the use of lament within moral injury research from its beginnings in psychology and veterans care to its present formulations in chaplaincy and pastoral theology (see above). The analysis suggests that certain elements and emphases of these laments connect with contemporary approaches to moral repair (e.g., Adaptive Disclosure treatment), which emphasize the importance of honest expression, protest, confession, and dialogue with a compassionate moral authority who is perceived as able to grant forgiveness.