Item Details

abstract

In this thesis, I argue that the Book of Job constructs a rhetorical situation that positions the reader into a dialogical encounter with Job’s suffering body and the reader’s own embodied experience. Challenging foundational assumptions of biblical criticism, such as the dualisms of subject/object, subjectivity/objectivity, and corporeality/language, I claim that the reader is an embodied subject whose embodiment contextualizes this sensory-engaging drama, rendering the Book of Job a phenomenal experience. Backing this perspective, I appeal to phenomenological theories of human subjectivity and rationality; theories of metaphor and language; and work in the analytic tradition, such cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. Ultimately, this frame is conducive to a postmodern hermeneutical context that values a plurality of voices, without slipping into a deconstructive posture or interpretative relativism. Most of all, this reading style provides a fruitful and intelligible angle on the Book of Job.

subject

embodiment

hermeneutics

Job

metaphor

phenomenology

suffering

contributor

Priddy, David Wayne (author)

Hoglund, Kenneth (committee chair)

Walls, Neal (committee member)

Whitaker, Jarrod (committee member)

date

2016-05-21T08:35:53Z (accessioned)

2016-05-21T08:35:53Z (available)

2016 (issued)

degree

Religion (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/59322 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

Sensing the Vexation: an Embodied Reading of the Book of Job

type

Thesis