Reading Genesis for the Earth

March 07, 2023, 7:30pm Eastern Time

Passages in Genesis are among the core culprits in perpetuating theologies that justify the domination of humans over the environment, and over each other. Yet alternative Earth-positive readings and passages also abound. In this session, Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre and Rabbi Dr. Rachel S. Mikva will share hermeneutical perspectives that help to disarm toxic readings of texts such as Genesis 1:26-28, and draw out readings that support movements for climate justice and earth liberation.

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Rabbi Dr. Rachel S. Mikva is the Herman E. Schaalman Professor of Jewish Studies and Senior Faculty Fellow of the InterReligious Institute at Chicago Theological Seminary. Professor Mikva served as a congregational rabbi for thirteen years before returning to academia. Her research and teaching focus on interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in various times and places, exploring how the ideas both shape and reflect the societies in which they unfold. She is especially interested in the intersections of exegesis, culture and ethics. She is also an interfaith activist, a mother, an environmentalist, a feminist, an anti-racist, an empath, a pragmatist, and a perfectionist. Her recent publications include Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2020) and Midrash vaYosha: A Medieval Midrash on the Song at the Sea (2012). Read more at https://www.rachelmikva.com/

Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre is an international scholar, documentarian, novelist, academic author, and scholar activist. The focus of Dr. De La Torre’s academic pursuit is social ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class, and gender oppression. Since obtaining his doctoral in 1999, he has authored over a hundred articles and published forty-three books (six of which won national awards). He presently serves as Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. A Fulbright scholar, he has taught in Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Germany; and lectured in Costa Rica, Cuba, Palestine, Thailand, Taiwan. Within his guild he served as the 2012 President of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is the recipient of the 2020 AAR Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2021 Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award. Within the academy, he served as a past-director to the American Academy of Religion, and served on the editorial board of JAAR. Additionally, he was the co-founder and executive director (2013-2017) of the Society of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion and the founding editor of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion. Dr. De La Torre has written numerous articles in popular media and has served on several civic organizations. Recently, he wrote the screenplay to a documentary on immigration (http://www.trailsofhopeandterrorthemovie.com/) which has screened in over eighteen film festivals winning over seven awards. Additionally, he has written an autofiction magical realism novel.