Past, Present, and Future: “Cultural Trauma” as an Interpretive Lens for Understanding the Historical Rewriting in the Book of Chronicles

Abstract The Book of Chronicles stands out in the biblical context as it systematically, and at times literally, revisits historical events recounted in other biblical books like Samuel and Kings. This article aims to shed light on the phenomenon of this historical rewriting by employing Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural trauma theory. While Alexander’s theory has found application as a framework for interpreting specific biblical books in recent years, the uniqueness of the proposed article lies in its approach. Rather than applying Alexander’s theory to books written in close proximity to the traumatic events, such as the exile, the article seeks to explore its relevance in a book shaped approximately 250 years after the occurrence of the trauma.