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Although the prosaic frame before and after the poetic, main body of the Job narrative mentions two sets of children, one can question this and explain the change as psychological development in the parental figure, Job, himself. There are at least three clues to this: Job receives more in the end than he lost in the beginning, yet the number of his children remains the same; there is no mention of Job’s wife being traumatised by the loss of her children and as there is no mention that Job’s body is healed, it remains uncertain if he could still father children. Instead, the repeated substitutions especially in the sacrificial sections suggest that Job empathically identifies with the threatened bodies of others so that he inevitably becomes a sacrificial victim himself. Through his traumatic bodily experience, he matures and shifts to a more adult-like ego state where bodies are mentally exchanged. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2022/v35n2a8

The question about fantasy and fiction in religion is probably as old as the first interrogation and critique of revealed religion. However, the relation between fiction and religion is a two-way street. Underlying both is imagination which brings into play the psychological dimension of both but this in turn is always based on the body. Fantasy dreamily imagines the perfect body precisely to try and fill the gap left by imperfection. As an example from religious fiction, the two monstrosities in the second divine speech virtually at the end of the book of Job will be viewed through the hermeneutical lens of abjection, as explained by Julia Kristeva. As projections of the sick protagonist’s own frustrated sexual and aggressive impulses embodied as abject animal bodies they are surprisingly celebrated by the Divine who can contain the id in its protest against the superego. In the tension between play and seriousness in this transitional space negotiated by the ego creativity rooted in the chaotic and free, polymorph perversity opens the door to the revelation from the unconscious. The fundamental question remains, however, if this creativity is purely human meaning-making or tapping into the divine through some kind of intuition.

Danna Nolan Fewell (editor). The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative. Christoph Stenschke Stephan Anthony Cummins & Jens Zimmermann (editors), Acts of Interpretation: Scripture, Theology and Culture. Pieter van der Zwan Hemchand Gossai (editor), Postcolonial Commentary and the Old Testament. Pieter van der Zwan

Merling Alomía, Daniel: El profeta mesiánico. Vol. 2. Pieter van der Zwan Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, ed. The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film. Parts 1, 2. Christoph Stenschke

Malachi. S. D. (Fanie) Snyman. S. I. (Fanie) Cronjé Bleibendes Nachwirken des Exils: Untersuchung zur kanonischen Endgestalt des Ezechielbuches. Tobias Häner. Benjamin Kilchör Origenes: Die Homilien und Fragmente zum Hohelied: Eingeleitet und übersetzt von Alfons Fürst und Holger Strutwolf. Prof. Dr. Christoph Stenschke The Deuteronomist’s History: The Role of the Deuteronomist in Historical-Critical Research into Genesis–Numbers. Hans Ausloos. Pieter van der Zwan The Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms: Reconsidering the Transmission and Canonization of Psalmody in Light of Material Culture and the Poetics of Anthologies. David Willgren Beat Weber

https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2019/v32n2a26