ENCORE: Trauma and Parenting Insights from Genesis with Dr. Steven Spector – Seekers of Meaning 10/23/2026

On this week’s encore episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Dr. Steven Spector discusses his new book, God and the First Families: Parenting, Trauma, and Healing in the Book of Genesis. He focuses on trauma theory in Genesis, parenting styles in the Bible, and the psychological insights into biblical characters. This episode explores how ancient stories reflect human trauma and parenting dynamics, offering valuable lessons for modern life. About the book God and the First Families offers a novel exploration of God’s role as a parent in the book of Genesis. Compellingly, author Stephen Spector introduces Americans’ four main perceptions of God and their four most common styles of parenting as lenses through which we can reckon with God’s own methods of parenting in the first biblical book. God begins as an authoritarian parent who demands obedience and submission to authority, but shifts in striking ways. Next, God’s parenting seems entirely benevolent. Stunningly, God reverts to authoritarianism during the near sacrifice of Isaac―but then invents a new parenting style focused on guiding the characters’ moral and emotional growth. Many psychologists consider this the most successful childrearing method. Genesis reached that conclusion two and a half millennia ago! Throughout, Spector engages with familiar stories―sibling rivalries, family ruptures, traumas―from unexpected angles. He dramatizes how parental love in Genesis builds resilience against trauma, another idea validated by modern psychology. Surviving trauma, healing from parental favoritism, repairing broken relationships, earning forgiveness, possibly even reconciling after injury―Genesis offers wisdom on all. Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging. You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions. If you do not see a player directly below this paragraph, you can still watch the video by clicking on this link: LINK Listen to the Audio Podcast You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player. If you do not see a player below, you can still listen to the podcast by clicking on this link: LINK Apple Podcasts YouTube Spotify Podchaser Amazon Music About the Guest Stephen Spector Stephen Spector is a professor of English emeritus at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews and Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism, among other volumes. Spector has taught the Bible to undergraduate and graduate students for fifty years. He has been a visiting scholar at Hebrew University and a senior research fellow at the National Humanities Center and the Wesleyan Center for Humanities. The post ENCORE: Trauma and Parenting Insights from Genesis with Dr. Steven Spector – Seekers of Meaning 10/23/2026 appeared first on Jewish Sacred Aging.