Empathy, Perspective Taking, Role Imagination: The Importance of Empathy in the Interpretation of the Psalms

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Alexandra Stephanie Grund-Wittenberg
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 525213275

In this project, cultural-scientific empathy research is to be made fruitful for biblical hermeneutics in general and for the Psalms in particular. In a present marked by the trauma of the 20th and 21st centuries and shaped by a variety of crises, it is generally necessary to go beyond the insights of classic hermeneutics of empathy with the help of the newer approaches to understanding pain and suffering that are based on the concept of empathy and trauma and to establish these in biblical studies. In addition, it is also important to clarify the linguistic differentiation between empathy, sympathy, identification, compassion, pity and mercy. Literary empathy research is already carefully discussing analogies and differences in empathy with fellow human beings and with literary or historical figures, which also apply to biblical texts. In connection with this, research in the Psalms should also explore the freedom of the reader in front of the text, which enables the differentiated perception of figures and the complexity of imagined options for action, which guarantees model learning for empathy even in complex everyday life. What needs to be examined is also how figures in the Psalms are presented as empathetic. Insights from recent empathy research thus prove to be an important remedy for common identification concepts that are too simple. Depending on the profile of the respective individual psalms, their relevance for empathy with traumatized, grieving, ashamed, hostile, saved, etc. figures should receive special attention. Finally, the meaning of empathy in the composition of psalm texts should also be asked on the production side. The proposed project essentially has the following goals: On the one hand, the importance of the insights of recent empathy research is to be explored and operationalized in the form of fundamental, methodological and hermeneutical studies for the Hebrew Bible in general and for Psalms research in particular. On the other hand, the approach developed should be used in the context of one's own interpretation of the Psalms. The goals include the publication of the above-mentioned research work, the promotion of young scientists by enabling proven habilitated scientists to substitute professors before their first appointment, the promotion of international cooperation on the topic and the presentation of international research in Germany by inviting relevant guest scientists.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants