'Whoever lost children lost her heart': valourised maternal grief in the Hebrew Bible

Recent studies on ancient Israel's mortuary culture have shown that mourning rites were not restricted to the occasions of death, burial and subsequent grief but were, in fact, implemented in diverse contexts. In this thesis I am looking at biblical traditions in which these solemn practices contributed, or sought to contribute to various forms of social restoration. More specifically, I explore the stories of biblical grieving mothers who are placed at key junctures in Israel's history to renegotiate the destinies not only of their own children, dead or lost, but also those of larger communities, i.e. family lines, ethnic groups, or entire nations. Since 'the social and ritual dimensions of mourning are intertwined and inseparable...[and] rites in general are a context for the creation and transformation of social order', these women use the circumstance of their 'interrupted' motherhood as a platform for a kind of grief-driven socio-political activism. Since maternal bereavement is generally understood as the most intense of all types of loss and was seen as archetypal of all mourning in ancient Near Eastern cultures, Israelite communities in crisis deemed sorrowing motherhood as a potent agent in bringing about their own survival and resurgence back to normalcy. I begin my discussion on mourning rites as tools of social preservation and restoration in biblical traditions with (1) a list of modern examples that attest to a phenomenon of social, political, and religious engagement among women that stems from the circumstance of child loss; (2) a survey of recent grief and death studies that identify maternal grief as the most intense and the most enduring among other types of bereavement; (3) an overview of ancient Near Eastern cultures (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hatti, Syro-Palestine) that not only viewed maternal grief as paradigmatic of all mourning but also utilised ritual actions performed by mothers in contexts of large scale catastrophes as mechanisms for dealing with a collective trauma. Against this background my project then turns to discuss four biblical mothers: Hagar (Gen. 21:14-21), Rizpah (2 Sam. 21:1-14), the woman of Tekoa (2 Sam. 14:1-20) and Rachel (Jer. 31:15-22), all of whom perform rites for their dying or dead children and exhibit a form of advocacy for society at large.This thesis is not currently available via ORA

Assyria and the Beginnings of the Book of Isaiah:Isaiah 6+8 and 28–31 Revisited

This article focuses on Isa 6–8* and 28–31*, two centre-pieces of the early Isaiahtradition, and argues that Isa 6+8* in its basic literary form is dependent onIsa 28–31*. Isa 28–31*, written after 701 BCE, presumably was the first literarycomplex which presented Isaiah’s message of 705–701 BCE in a revised and developed form. It presents the events of 701 BCE as a disaster and interprets them as YHWH’s rightful punishment of his sinful nation. Isa 6+8*, based on 28–31*, was composed in the same period and likewise reflects on 701 BCE. But it adds the view that it is through Isaiah’s prophetic ministry that YHWH brings about the deserved punishment of Judah.Both Isa 6+8* and 28–31* aim to reveal to a post-701 audience the truth behindthe disastrous events that had taken place, as a lesson to be heeded. The texts were written from the conviction that after punishment a time of divine favour would come again. This positive intent is indicated in 8:17, put into the mouth of Isaiah.The final part discusses how the negative reception of 701 BCE that marks6+8* and 28–31*, in the course of the seventh century BCE was followed by a verydifferent, glorifying view of 701 BCE, focusing on the survival of Jerusalem andthe violent death of Sennacherib. This paved the way for an anti-Assyrian updateof the Isaiah tradition in the latter part of the seventh century BCE when Assyriahad lost its grip on the western part of its empire

Genome-wide and fine-resolution association analysis of malaria in West Africa

We report a genome-wide association (GWA) study of severe malaria in The Gambia. The initial GWA scan included 2,500 children genotyped on the Affymetrix 500K GeneChip, and a replication study included 3,400 children. We used this to examine the performance of GWA methods in Africa. We found considerable population stratification, and also that signals of association at known malaria resistance loci were greatly attenuated owing to weak linkage disequilibrium (LD). To investigate possible solutions to the problem of low LD, we focused on the HbS locus, sequencing this region of the genome in 62 Gambian individuals and then using these data to conduct multipoint imputation in the GWA samples. This increased the signal of association, from P = 4 × 10(-7) to P = 4 × 10(-14), with the peak of the signal located precisely at the HbS causal variant. Our findings provide proof of principle that fine-resolution multipoint imputation, based on population-specific sequencing data, can substantially boost authentic GWA signals and enable fine mapping of causal variants in African populations