Eating (With) You: Exploring Slow Intimacy in the Book of Song of Songs and Written on The Body by Jeannette Winterson, Through the Lens of Food

This article explores the link between sex and food imagery to cultivate a sense of slow intimacy in an ancient and contemporary ode to love. The delicious, nutritious, and indulgent nature of food used in both the Hebrew Bible book Song of Songs and Jeannette Winterson’s novel, Written on the Body, helps us consider the sheer delight of communion between partners. Not only are the bodies of the lovers described in terms of food imagery but also the very act of eating together serves as a way to capture the intimacy and the ecstasy associated with the sexual union. However, it will also be shown how food and eating point to the fleetingness of bodies that live, love, and decay, contemplating the significance of slow intimacy through all of life’s stages

Going home? Exiles, inciles and refugees in the Book of Jeremiah

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 group that saw the hope for the future back home and the group of refugees who in the aftermath of the Mizpah massacre found themselves fleeing to Egypt. In the current context of global migration, this article considers theological and ethical perspectives generated by the engagement with Jeremiah on home and homecoming in a context where there is no good option

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child:” Considering the Metaphor of Divine Adoption in the Context of Trauma

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 adoptive mother. This idea of divine adoption is further found in Psalm 68:5 when God is described as the “Father of orphans… [who] gives the desolate a home to live in”. And in Psalm 27:9–10, God is praised by the psalmist as “God of my salvation!” saying that “if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up”. In a context in which fathers and mothers either have died or have forsaken their children, God is thus portrayed as the adoptive parent who, as evident in the creative reinterpretation of Ps 68:5 in the African American spiritual referenced in the title of the essay serves as “Mother to the motherless, and father to the fatherless”. I argue that when it is important to keep in mind the complexities associated with this metaphor, which includes not only the multiple layers of trauma associated with the origin and reception of this metaphor but also the trauma associated with the adoptive process and the ongoing relationship between parent and adopted child that may be fraught with ambiguity. Read in the context of individual and collective trauma, this article makes a case for the interpretative potential of this metaphor in times when people literally and figuratively have felt, and still may be feeling, like motherless (and fatherless) children

Feminist Biblical Interpretation

This article offers a critical reflection on feminist biblical interpretation that, over the past forty plus years, has contributed greatly to changing the face of Christian biblical scholarship. After offering a definition, as well as an overview of the field of feminist biblical interpretation focusing particularly on the compendiums that seek to map the field, this essay identifies four topics as offering a creative means to reflect on the goals of feminist biblical interpretation that seeks to deconstruct and challenge harmful interpretations of scripture while also reconstructing and reimagining life-giving interpretations from those same texts: (1) voice, (2) gender-based violence, (3) agency/resistance, and (4) identity. Within the framework of these four topics, this entry will share some examples of the rich contributions of feminist biblical interpreters to the field, highlighting the development in thought and emphasis over the years. This article will also showcase the diversity of the exegetical approaches that may be found under the overarching umbrella of feminist biblical interpretation, in addition to reflecting on the common goals, challenges, and unresolved questions associated with this approach that had such an impact on the field of biblical studies

Finding Words in the Belly of Sheol: Reading Jonah’s Lament in Contexts of Individual and Collective Trauma

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 trauma, I propose that Jonah’s lament in Jonah 2 taps into the metaphors and images available in the lament tradition of the Book of Psalms. The application of symbolic language in ascribing meaning to traumatic events is particularly significant, and may help us derive new layers of meaning from the words placed into the mouth of the prophet who finds himself in the belly of Sheol

“Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child:” Considering the Metaphor of Divine Adoption in the Context of Trauma

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 adoptive mother. This idea of divine adoption is further found in Psalm 68:5 when God is described as the “Father of orphans… [who] gives the desolate a home to live in”. And in Psalm 27:9–10, God is praised by the psalmist as “God of my salvation!” saying that “if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up”. In a context in which fathers and mothers either have died or have forsaken their children, God is thus portrayed as the adoptive parent who, as evident in the creative reinterpretation of Ps 68:5 in the African American spiritual referenced in the title of the essay serves as “Mother to the motherless, and father to the fatherless”. I argue that when it is important to keep in mind the complexities associated with this metaphor, which includes not only the multiple layers of trauma associated with the origin and reception of this metaphor but also the trauma associated with the adoptive process and the ongoing relationship between parent and adopted child that may be fraught with ambiguity. Read in the context of individual and collective trauma, this article makes a case for the interpretative potential of this metaphor in times when people literally and figuratively have felt, and still may be feeling, like motherless (and fatherless) children

Reading trauma narratives : insidious trauma in the story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah (Genesis 29-30) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

CITATION: Claassens, L. J. M. 2020. Reading trauma narratives : insidious trauma in the story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah (Genesis 29-30) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Old Testament Essays, 33(1):10–31, doi:10.17159/2312-3621/2020/v33n1a3.The original publication is available at https://ote-journal.otwsa-otssa.org.zaThis 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 situated in terms of the broader field of trauma hermeneutics, as well as the way in which it relates to the related disciplines of feminist and womanist biblical interpretation. This article will then continue to show how insidious trauma features in two very different, though intrinsically connected trauma narratives, i.e., the world imagined by Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale, and the biblical narrative regarding the four women through whose reproductive efforts the house of Israel had been built that served as the inspiration for Atwood’s novel. This article argues that these trauma narratives, on the one hand, reflect the ongoing effects of systemic violation in terms of gender, race and class, but also how, embedded in these narratives there are signs of resistance that serve as the basis of survival of the self and also of others.Publisher's versio

"Trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored" : assessing the legacy of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"

Please cite as follows:Claassens, L.J. 2014. “Trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” Assessing the legacy of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, 55(3 & 4): 557-577, doi:10.5952/55-3-4-653.The original publication is available at http://ojs.reformedjournals.co.za“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 National Cathedral in Washington DC and most recently at Barack Obama’s inauguration service in January 2013. Th is hymn moreover has served as inspiration for John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath as well as John Updike’s novel In the Beauty of the Lilies. And yet, this hymn is steeped in violence as it draws on biblical imagery that imagines God as a violent warrior who will deal decisively with God’s enemies. Th e first stanza in particular utilizes imagery of God trampling the wine press in Isaiah 63 in which the blood of the enemies are staining God’s robes red, which in turn is picked up by the author of the book of Revelation. Th is violence at the heart of the “Battle Hymn” is problematic indeed. As Dominic Tierney writes in an article in The Atlantic, “the ‘Battle Hymn’ is a warrior’s cry and a call to arms. Its vivid portrait of sacred violence captures how Americans fight wars, from the minié balls of the Civil War to the shock and awe of Iraq” (Nov 4, 2010). In this paper, I will investigate the complex reception history of this popular hymn in (American) public discourse as well as its biblical origins in the portrayal of God and violence in prophetic literature of the Old Testament. I will ask whether the violent origins of the divine metaphor hamper its applicability to just causes such as the fi ght for gender and racial justice. This question is particularly important to consider as we are faced globally with the question of how God is invoked in public discourse – most recently in my South African context by President Jacob Zuma, who famously has said that the ANC would rule until Jesus will come again. In an address to the 33rd Presbyterian Synod in Giyani, Limpopo in October 2013, Pres Zuma is reported to have invoked the wrath of God upon those individuals who do not respect his leadership, raising disconcerting questions regarding the link between divine violence and violence in political discourse.http://ojs.reformedjournals.co.za/index.php/ngtt/article/view/436Publisher's versio