The rhetorical purpose of Israel's notion of the 'whole body' as the ideal body in the psalms: A comparative study of selected psalms from four different genres

The authors of the psalms implemented body rhetoric, especially the notion of the �whole body� as the ideal body, in the various genres of psalms, with specific purposes in mind. The whole body as ideal body served as a defining paradigm within the ancient Israelite culture. In this article, the relationship between the embodied God-concept, the ideal societal body and the individual body is investigated in order to determine the purpose of the implementation of this ideology of whole-bodiedness in selected psalm genres. In Psalm 2, the political body as cultural construct plays a prominent role in directing the individual to think of the body in a specific manner. In Psalm 6, the �broken body� drives the lamentation of the psalmist towards recovery. Psalm 29 reflects the poet�s ability to sketch, in hymnic-embodied language, God�s relationship with his creation and his people and the poet�s worship for God�s fullness of existence and activity. Psalm 32, as a psalm of thanksgiving, pictures God as the whole body in terms of the saviour, protector and healer of the broken (sinful) body.

The Body, Rhetoric and Postcolonial Criticism

The paper concentrates on the Western presence in Africa in the midst of accusations of racism. Using a postcolonial framework posited by two books written/edited by R. S Sugirtharajah (1998. Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism. Contesting the Interpretations, and The Postcolonial Bible) the paper follows recent events and public debates in South Africa regarding racism and AIDS in which President Thabo Mbeki played an important role. It argues that the representation of the 'white person' in this debate is that of the perpetrator of racism, a position from which there is no escape. The position of Western bodily presence is described in terms of the ambiguity of being the coloniser, yet, simultaneously, experiencing internal colonisation. The physical location and the physical features of the body remain important for a South African postcolonial condition. Bearing in mind Levinas' warning of the totalisation of the 'Other', the paper argues that the colonial binary oppositions are not yet overcome. The plurality claimed by postcolonial critics is denied for Western thinking, which is reduced to one grand narrative of exploitation. Although the paper acknowledges the need to lay bare the powerful structures and ideologies of the dominant forces in the global society, it questions the postcolonial project's imperialistic tendency of imposing its own.