Researcher(s):
Darya Watnick
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2012 Completed: May 2012 Go to project site
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In this project, I analyze the way that natural disasters, specifically earthquakes and hurricanes, have been depicted in ancient and contemporary times. There is a contrast between the richness of the theological responses in antiquity and the weakness of theological reflection among moderns. In order to understand the reasons behind this diversity in views, I examine texts from the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and the biblical period writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus Flavius. These texts provide a broad spectrum of examples from both early Jewish and Christian theists. I then look at documents from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Union for Reform Judaism, and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism to get examples from contemporary Jewish and Christian traditions, as well as different branches of Christianity. Through the study of these texts, I begin to uncover the themes that run throughout both time periods as well as the meanings people assigned to the disasters that begin to evolve in the contemporary faiths. God plays a role in modern disaster response, but in a position of addressing social concerns rather than divine justice, the primary concern for the ancient writers. I examine the causes behind this shift in viewpoints and what it means for contemporary theists to abdicate from seeing the divine role in natural disasters.