'Psalm 22 and the Transformation of Male Victimhood and Violence: A Liberating Model of Interpretation’

Psalm 22 is an arresting Hebrew poem that conveys the despairing isolated voice of a persecuted victim. Yet, reading this poem in its original language, through the combined lens of mimetic theory and feminist theory, enables determination and consideration of the gendered experiences of violence and victimhood disclosed in this text. In particular, this interpretive framework emphasises the Psalm’s witness to male experiences of violence and victimhood. Furthermore, this interpretive lens illustrates the Bible’s capacity to expose enduring structures of androcentric violence so we may be liberated from them, while at once cultivating within the reader an ethical imagination of care grounded in the encounter with the victim.