| dc.description.abstract | This thesis analyzes and discusses Juliana Claassens’ monograph Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament. My aim in this thesis is to challenge the presumption of to whom this monograph speaks, and to illustrate its relevance to women in the context of childbirth. My thesis question asks, “To what degree can birth-giving women be understood as implied readers of Juliana Claassens’ monograph Mourner, Mother, Midwife?” Chapter 1 provides an introduction, as well as the method for this thesis. Chapter 2 provides an overview of relevant theologians, defines relevant terms such as ‘reader’, ‘intended reader’, ‘implied reader’ and ‘implied author’, and shortly explains feminist criticism, rhetorical critic, reader-response-criticism, and trauma theory. Chapter 3, which is the main portion of this thesis, analyzes and discusses Claassens’ three chapters: God as Mourner, God as Mother, and God as Midwife. I suggest that Claassens’ discussion of tears of the wailing women joined with God’s tears speaks birth-giving women about a deliverer God who cries with them in childbirth. In addition, I argue how the words of the prophet Jeremiah, and Claassens’ analysis of it, to some degree can put into words the trauma of childbirth. I further analyze Claassens’ discussion of the two images of a maternal God: God as Woman in Labor, and God as Nurturing Mother, where I suggest that God not only joins in the pain of childbirth, but bus is the Mother who never abandons her children. I also discuss Claassens’ reflections on the texts Ps. 22:9-10 and 71:6 that portray God as Midwife and reflect a person’s struggle to cope with severe pain. I propose that Claassens’ discussion on God portrayed as Midwife speaks about a relationship between a birth-giving woman and God as Midwife in the context of childbirth. Lastly, I reflect one the patriarchal nature of the texts that I argue have relevance for birth-giving women, considering that childbirth is a woman’s experience. Chapter 4 concludes that Claassens’ monograph Mourner, Mother, Midwife with its focus on trauma and maternal images of God speaks, clearly speaks to implied readers that are birth-giving women. | en_US |
