Dead and Buried?
Attending to the voices of the victim in the Old Testament and today.

Whether we are reading a modern news article about a violent atrocity, or one of the shocking Old Testament stories of violence, it is important that we ask certain questions of ourselves and of the written account. Whose interests are being served by the telling of this story? Whose voices are not being heard? Whose lives are considered worthy of grieving, and whose deaths are regarded as forgettable? What responsibility does reading this story place upon me? This lecture will aim to consider these questions and so provide some tools to assist us as we read Old Testament stories of violence.

Helen Paynter was a hospital doctor until 2008, when she was called to Baptist ministry.She is now part time Associate Minister of Victoria Park Baptist Church, Bristol, and Research Fellow at Bristol Baptist College. She teaches Old Testament and biblical languages at a number of theological colleges and universities. Her PhD thesis was on aspects of humour in Kings, but her current research area is in how to read Old Testament narratives of violence, and how they relate to modern problems of violence and migration. She lives in Bristol with her husband and three teenage daughters.