A priest coping with a new place : a vocational psychology and trauma reading of Ezekiel's priestly identity

Abstract

Interpreters have long noted that the book of Ezekiel has a priestly shape. From its explicit description of Ezekiel in 1:3 as יחזקאל בן־בוזי הכהן (“Ezekiel, son of Buzi, the priest”) to its widely accepted “priestly content,” scholarship has associated the book with P (priestly) and HC (holiness code) ascribed passages of the Pentateuch. It is also no surprise that historians of the Israelite and Judean priesthood inevitably turn to Ezekiel in due course of their research; it is widely recognized as a primary source for studying developing priestly traditions.

A more recent set of questions have focused on the relationship between Ezekiel’s priestly and prophetic identities insofar as those can be accessed from the prophetic book bearing his name. A flurry of publications grappled with this from 1998-2005 yet came to no agreed-upon solution. This research project is an effort to take up the discussion from where it has lain dormant and moved the discussion forward using the hitherto unutilized (or at least underutilized) tools of vocational psychology.

As occupational identity is observable in a variety of contexts—ancient and modern, rural and urban—and recoverable from ancient Levantine inscriptions, epigraphic finds, and the text of the Old Testament, carefully applying analytical tools designed to understand the importance and salience of vocational identity appears to be a warranted move. This research surveys occupational identity in general and priestly occupational identity in particular before turning to key themes and passages in Ezekiel which evidence a priestly vocational identity that remaining active for Ezekiel.

Recent study of the psychological effects of trauma, and readings of biblical texts attuned to this trauma, have also dovetailed with vocational psychology which has increasingly attended to migrants of the present-day who are forced to make occupational modifications to cope with their own traumatic, exilic experience. Studying the observed techniques of job-crafting, this research proposes similar techniques in Ezekiel that enable the priest-prophet to retain his priestly, occupational identity, albeit modified in accordance with his locale far from the traditional place of priestly activity (the Jerusalem temple) and in accordance with his prophetic call.