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

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.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Priddy, David Wayne

• embodiment

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/59322

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/59322