The possible impact of animals on Job’s body image : a psychoanalytical perspective
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Date
Authors
Van der Zwan, Pieter
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AOSIS
Abstract
The body plays an important role in the book of Job – as do animals. According to
psychoanalytical specifically object-relations theory, a subjective body image was partly
constructed through the internalisation of external stimuli from significant others who
mirrored the subject through their feedback or through their own bodies, which served as an
ideal or critique to the subject. Amongst the external stimuli, animals constitute such significant
others. Animals could therefore have impacted Job’s subjective body image, particularly as
their bodies were described in detail by God as a response to Job’s complaints and searching.
CONTRIBUTION : Two theoretical and interrelated problems were acknowledged although they
cannot be satisfactorily solved: the cultural aspect of the body image and the relationship to animals.
Description
Special Collection: Theology, Economy and Environment: Cultural & Biotic Influences on Religious Communities, sub-edited by
Jerry Pillay (University of Pretoria).
Keywords
Book of Job, Body image, Animals, Psychoanalytical, Divine speeches, Skin, Psychic internalisation, Body, Religiosity
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Van der Zwan, P., 2021,
‘The possible impact of
animals on Job’s body
image: A psychoanalytical
perspective’, HTS Teologiese
Studies/Theological Studies
77(4), a6696. https://DOI.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6696.