Cognitive Disability and the Hebrew Bible

Abstract Knowledge is a major theme in the Hebrew Bible, and raises both challenges and possibilities for theology and cognitive disability. This paper will focus on these issues with particular reference to disability theology, and the Psalter. Pervasive negative portrayals of ignorance and folly, of dullness of mind or heart, become problematic in light of cognitive disability. I will suggest that these negative construals pertain to willed ignorance, rather than those who live with cognitive disabilities. On the other hand, cognitive disability encourages broader reflections on YHWH’s care for those who are vulnerable and marginalized, whatever form that might take. In social conditions such as ours, where cognitive agency is so prized, those with cognitive disabilities are weak and vulnerable—orphaned, so to speak, by our institutions and practices. The Psalms, in particular, remind us that God cares for them—and so should we. Cognitive disability may also help us rethink our assumptions, and so gain fresh insight from biblical texts in relation to identity, vulnerability and agency (and its absence), and the need to name human brokenness and avail ourselves of the resources Scripture gives us to address it. Finally, dealing with people with cognitive disabilities requires that we reconsider our epistemology and the values inherent in it. If the knowledge of God is (fundamentally) relationship with God and not mere cognition, then we must consider both how people with cognitive disabilities might exemplify that knowledge, and how their patterns of knowing might contribute to the fullness of human knowing.