Juliana Claassens

Stellenbosch University | SUN · Department of Old and New Testament

In this article that explores male and female metaphors for God in the Hebrew Bible, I argue with specific reference to the book of Jeremiah that the intersection of trauma and gender is particularly important in considering how tumultuous times inevitably impact the way people spoke and continue to speak about God. In this regard, recent developme...

This article will explore the rhetorical and theological significance of the metaphor of divine adoption in the Hebrew Bible. In Ps 22:10–11 and Ps 71:6–9 God is not only said to pull the psalmist out of his/her mother’s womb, but in a context in which many mothers all too often died in childbirth, the newborn is cast upon God who steps in as the a...

Wie sind die Entwicklungen der Gender Studies vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Historie zu verstehen? Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes diskutieren diese Frage in drei thematischen Blöcken: Biografische Reflexionen treffen auf politische, künstlerische sowie wissenschaftliche Interventionen und stellen so das Potential der Disziplin heraus. Die einzelnen Bei...

Wie sind die Entwicklungen der Gender Studies vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Historie zu verstehen? Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes diskutieren diese Frage in drei thematischen Blöcken: Biografische Reflexionen treffen auf politische, künstlerische sowie wissenschaftliche Interventionen und stellen so das Potential der Disziplin heraus. Die einzelnen Bei...

By reading Jonah’s lament in Jonah 2 through the lens of trauma hermeneutics, this article will try to better understand the words that have been assigned to the main character Jonah, which represent a community’s deep sorrow in the aftermath of the unspeakable horrors of warfare. Read as an attempt to ascribe meaning to individual and collective t...

Jione Havea observes how over the years Jonah has repeatedly found himself hurled into a swirling sea of interpretative methods, bobbing up and down on waves of traditional, contemporary, mainstream, and marginalized approaches. This article seeks to enter these churning waters and consider how these interpretative waves flow together to form new w...

In Nah 3:1, the Assyrian capital Nineveh is called "city of bloodshed." Nineveh is indeed "a bloody city," filled with the blood of the numerous dead bodies associated with the fall of the city. However, as also in the case of a similar portrayal of the city of Jerusalem in Ezek 22:2, Nineveh is depicted as a female entity, hence suggesting that on...

Writing and Reading to Survive brings a number of trauma narratives from the Hebrew Bible into conversation with contemporary trauma narratives, exploring how these ancient and modern-day stories mitigate the experiences of pain and suffering in the face of trauma. Focusing on the intersection between trauma and gender, the trauma narratives select...

This article investigates the notion of insidious trauma as a helpful means of interpreting the story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah as told in Genesis 29-30 that has found its way into the haunting trauma narrative of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. In the first instance, this article outlines the category of insidious trauma as it is s...

In this article, I am contributing to the ongoing conversation on a feminist public theology. Drawing on examples of feminist public theologians in my own context in (South) Africa, I propose that a feminist public theology ought to deal honestly and constructively with the reality of the deep wounds and the scars caused by racism, sexism, xenophob...

In this article, I am contributing to the ongoing conversation on a Feminist Public Theology. I propose that a Feminist Public Theology in the first instance ought to deal honestly and constructively with the reality of the deep wounds and the scars caused by racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia, which, if left unattended, may fester and retu...

Contributors from various theological higher education institutions in South Africa and beyond come together to reflect on the best pedagogical practices to teach on often complex issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class, and on how they impact on health in our classrooms, in our churches, and in the communities where we live and work.

Recent hermeneutical approaches to Jeremiah 40-44 such as feminist critical and postcolonial biblical interpretation have highlighted the presence of some Judean princesses that in the past have not received much attention. This quite minor story of the daughters of King Zedekiah who had been taken hostage by the renegade leader Ishmael and then pa...

Set against the backdrop of the Babylonian Invasion and Exile, the Book of Jeremiah represents a variety of different perspectives on how to survive imperial domination. This article explores three competing visions that can be described in terms of the tension that exists between the pro-golah group that propagated life in Babylon, the anti-golah...

Beyond the virulent portrayal of imperial violence in Jeremiah 4-6 that is rightly described as "terror all around" (Jer 6:25), one also finds other forms of violation that are no less injurious (cf. the repeated reference to "wounds" in Jer 6:7, 14). This paper proposes that it is important also to recognize forms of structural violence in this te...

This article proposes that trauma hermeneutics and, in particular, greater theoretical reflection on the relationship between trauma and metaphor may help explain the birth metaphors in Micah 4:9-5:3, where the woman-in-labour metaphor has been transformed quite dramatically. In the context of Micah, which I propose could also be characterized as t...

n light of the numerous challenges posed by globalization, living together as humanity on one planet needs to be reinvented in the twenty-first century. To create a new, peaceful, just, and sustainable world order is vital to the survival of us all. In this regard, humankind will have to expand the limited scope of its moral imagination beyond the...

The Paulist Biblical Commentary (PBC) is a one-volume commentary on the books of the Bible designed for a wide variety of Bible readers, especially those engaged in pastoral ministry. The volume consists of a commentary on each of the seventy-three books of the Catholic canon of the Bible along with twelve general articles. While based on classical...

In light of Martha Nussbaum’s book, Political Emotions, this essay will seek to explore the way in which compassion functions in 1 Samuel 25 that tells the story of Abigail who resists the imminent threat of violence by offering a lavish feast to the at-the-time fugitive David and his men. Abigail’s act of generosity that saves the lives of her hou...

This essay seeks to explore the intersection of disability and religion within our South African context. All the authors are South Africans concerned with human rights and social inclusion issues. Swartz was born into a Jewish family but identifies as atheist, and has a long history of academic and personal engagement with emancipatory disability...

This article seeks to investigate the rhetorical function of Jeremiah's Temple, Covenant and Sabbath Sermons against the backdrop of cultural trauma. I propose that the three sermons found in Jeremiah 7, 11:1-14 and 17:19-27 provide a good illustration of what is understood under the notion of cultural trauma according to which one or more of the p...

Drawing on recent insights from trauma hermeneutics, this article sets out to investigate the sharply divergent divine metaphors used by Jeremiah while being in prison (Jer 20). In this text, one finds Jere-miah saying in so many words that he hates God; that God had vio-lated him (Jer 20:7). However, in the same breath, he also confesses God to be...

This volume on intercultural biblical interpretation includes essays by feminist scholars from Botswana, Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United States. Reading from a rich variety of socio-cultural locations, contributors present their hermeneutical frameworks for interpretation of Hebrew Bible texts, each framework grounded in...

In this article, I argue that revenge fantasies such as those found in the Oracles Against the Nations (OAN) in Jeremiah 45–51 underscore the necessity for responsible Bible reading practices. I argue that to protect us from our own worst selves, the very human tendency to resort to revenge that inevitably leads to violence, one needs to read these...

To be human means to resist dehumanization. In the darkest periods of human history, men and women have risen up and in many different voices said this one thing: " Do not treat me like this. Treat me like the human being that I am. " Claiming Her Dignity explores a number of stories from the Old Testament in which women in a variety of creative wa...

In this article, Claassens employs Martha Nussbaum's understanding of human fl ourishing as a hermeneutical framework for interpreting the portrayal of the "Woman of Substance" in Proverbs 31, the ēšet hayil that alternatively has been translated as the "good wife," "virtuous woman," "capable wife," "noble woman," or most literally, "woman of stren...

Given the violent legacy of the prophetic books, it is important to formulate a hermeneutical framework for making sense of these violent texts. In this essay, I will approach the problem of violence in the prophetic rhetoric by introducing six recent proposals that have been greatly helpful in my own thinking in constructing a hermeneutical framew...

Die hier dokumentierte Podiumsdiskussion fand am 8. September 2016 während des Kongresses der Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) in Stellenbosch, Südafrika, statt. Die beteiligten Theologinnen aus vier Kontinenten sollten zwei Fragen beantworten: 1. Was ist aus ihrer Erfahrung und für ihren Kontext der größte Gewinn, wenn Sie d...

Several scholars have identified comedic elements in the book of Jonah. However, underlying these comedic elements are traumatic memories of the devastating violence caused by empires. So the reference to Nineveh is likely to evoke memories of the terrible cruelty performed by the Assyrians, coupled with painful memories of the Babylonian invasion...

Th e Bible has the unfortunate legacy of being associated with gross human rights violations as evident in the scriptural justification of apartheid in South Africa as well as slavery in the American South. What is more, the Hebrew Bible also contains numerous instances in which the worth or dignity of the female characters are threatened, violated...

One of the most haunting instances of remembered violence in the biblical text constitutes the image of Rizpah, the widow of king Saul, who laments the brutal death of her two sons as well as her five stepsons in 2 Samuel 21. In this paper, I will read the story of Rizpah’ silent resistance against violence which in the end compels David to finally...

Special Forum on African Biblical Interpretation brought together by Gerald West with Musa Dube, Aliou Niang and Juliana Claassens responding to the JBL Kenneth Ngwa's paper The Making of Gershom's Story: A Cameroonian Postwar Hermeneutics Reading of Exodus 2

In light of the numerous instances in the Hebrew Bible in which the dignity of its characters are threatened, violated or potentially violated, this article seeks to identify a number of strategies that I have found helpful in my own journey to read the Bible for the dignity of all so as to overcome the Old Testament's Troubling legacy. These strat...

In this essay we seek to reflect on the issue of sexual violence in the context of the twenty year anniversary of democracy in South Africa bringing together views from our respective disciplines of Gender and the Bible on the one hand and Political Science on the other. We will employ the Old Testament Book of Esther, which offers a remarkable gli...

In probably one of the most disturbing texts in the Hebrew Bible, God is imaged in Ezekiel 16 (and 23) in terms of the metaphor of an Abusive Spouse (cf. also Hosea 1-2 and Jeremiah 2-3). In view of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians’ concern regarding the impact of violent (sacred) texts in a context of violence against women and ch...

In this paper, I will investigate the rhetorical function of the woman in labor metaphor in Jeremiah 30-31. In Jer 30:6 the woman in labor metaphor is used to denote the extreme vulnerability people experienced in the face of disaster when it is asked why strong men have become like women bearing children. In Jer 31:7-9, the woman in labor metaphor...

Statistics of violent crimes indicate that a culture of violence is permeating South African society today. One of the contributing factors to the widespread occurrence of gender-based violence may be what Peter Ochs calls “a logic of indignity” that is associated with violence against women. In order to counter gender-based violence, this flawed l...

This paper will consider the meaning and significance of the Sabbath commandment through the lens of human dignity, considering how various communities in the biblical traditions wrestled with the question of how to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. So the Sabbath commandment will be read in terms of the dual commandment to work as well as to...

In her provocative book, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz: A Jewish Feminist Theology of the Holocaust (2003), Melissa Raphael argues that the exceedingly ordinary acts of women washing or caring for their own bodies or the bodies of others reflected something of the liberating presence of God in Auschwitz. These 'simple acts of humanity' had th...

In the Book of Job, one finds a classic example of a person moving from able-bodied privilege to disability by means of a debilitating disease. This series of tragedies causes Job to become an outcast, alienated from his family and friends, and relegated to the outskirts of society. Throughout the Book of Job, one encounters some of the religious s...

This article seeks to explore the intriguing text of Numbers 27, in which the five daughters of Zelophehad challenge the judicial powers regarding the question of female inheritance (cf. also Num. 36). The daughters emerge as a symbol of the powerless standing up for what is right—the narrative serving as an example of where laws can be challenged...

In recent years, a number of non-traditional methodologies have been used to read the intriguing collection of oracles contained in the book of Jeremiah. Angela Bauer’s Gender in Jeremiah, Steed Vernyl Davidson’s postcolonial exploration of Jeremiah, Empire and Exile, Stuart MacWilliam’s essay on “Queering Jeremiah” and Kathleen O’Connor’s recent b...

In the book of Job, one finds a classic example of a person moving from able-bodied privilege to disability by means of a debilitating disease. This series of tragedies causes Job to become an outcast, alienated from his family/friends and delegated to the outskirts of society. Throughout the book of Job, one encounters some of the religious stereo...

The tragic story of the daughter of Jephthah (Judges 11) offers a chilling account of the dehumanizing effects of patriarchy. Not only does the fact that this young woman has no name attests to how little value she and other women held in a society structured around male honor, but it is through patriarchy’s power that Jephthah’s daughter loses her...

This article seeked to read the interconnected narratives of Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 16, 21) in terms of the hermeneutical lens of human dignity. For the purpose of this article, recent studies on the performative nature of emotions, which considered the central role of emotions such as pain, disgust and hatred in shaping the lives of individuals...

Traditional understandings of God as deliverer depict God as a mighty liberator-warrior and wrathful avenger. Juliana Claassens explores alternative Old Testament metaphors that portray God as mourner, mother, and midwife—images that resist the violence and bloodshed associated with the dominant warrior imagery. Claassens discusses how metaphors o...

This article proposes that the theme of human dignity offers a fruitful avenue to explore the interrelated themes of justice, vocation and human responsibility in the biblical traditions. Human dignity is most evident in the notion of the Imago Dei, i.e., the claim in Genesis 1:26-27 that humans, both male and female, are created in the image of Go...

Claassens explores how the image of the keeners, or wailing women, who in Jeremiah 9:17–20 are called by God to raise a lament over the beleaguered people of Judah, serves as a powerful symbol of survival of an injured people seeking to come to terms with the tragedy that had befallen them. Employing insights from trauma theory, this article invest...

This sermon was preached in 2006 in the chapel of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond with a combination of students, faculty and staff in attendance. Although not preached on the exact day, this sermon was very much conceived in the spirit of World Aids Day. Living and working part of the year in South Africa, the topic of HIV/Aids is close t...

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written in 1861 by Julia Howe in the context of the American Civil War, indeed has a rich reception history in American public discourse and popular culture. So this hymn was cited by Martin Luther King in his last speech before being assassinated in 1968; it was sung at the memorial service for 9/11 at the Nation...

How does one sing songs of liberation to the liberator God in those instances where liberation seems a remote possibility? At a time when the community of faith is recovering from the trauma of exile, and continuing to endure the trauma of submission to foreign empires, the psalmist looks to God for redemption. That redemption begins with the remem...

In this essay, Genesis 1 is read in terms of the twofold task of a feminist biblical interpreter, i.e., to deconstruct harmful interpretations that uphold hierarchies with regard to race, class, and gender, and to reconstruct interpretations that offer a vision of God's relationship to the world that is committed to end oppression and injustice in...

Microreproduction. Tesis (M.A.)--Universiteit van Stellenbosch, 1996. Includes bibliographical references.