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The purpose of this study is to investigate how legal metaphors are used, developed and valuated through the book of Job. By the method of close reading I analyze the speeches of Job in order to investigate if and how the legal metaphors maintain tension between source and main domain, if they are meaningful, are used in a creative way and developed through the book of Job. The legal language is used by the prophets to explain the suffering of the people by ascribing God to the roles of prosecutor and judge who punishes the people for their violation of the covenant. In the book of Job the friends of Job represent tradition. They promote the theory of retribution and claim that Job is being judged and punished for his sins. Job breaks with the tradition and wish es to meet God in court, and assigns different legal roles to God; plaintiff, accused, witness, his legal representative and the criminal. Through out the book of Job the tension between God and all these different roles is maintained and discussed. Job cannot meet God in court because they are unequal and there is no one who has authority over God. To behold God criminally accused seems inappropriate because God is the foundation of justice. However Job keeps using the metaphors in his complaint before God. The oath in chapter 31 shows the absurdity to put all different legal roles of God into one model but nevertheless shows how the legal metaphors are useful as a language of complaint. In the speeches of God there are no legal metaphors and Job is responding by admitting his limitation in explaining the works of God and by promising to be quiet. The friends of Job are being rebuked for having talked wrong about God. They used the legal metaphors to explain God and the works of God. The legal metaphors are not to be used as explanatory models but provide a platform for the innocent to form their complaint for vindication.

The purpose of the present study is to discuss which relationships and images of God exist between the Lovers in the Song of Songs. Theologian Sallie McFague's thoughts on the image of God as lover from Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age form the framework from which I conduct my analysis. Since my primary material is of a biblical historical nature, my method is to read the texts with both modern idea-analytical methods, but also to read the narrative with a dialogic interpretation of history that enables a conversation with our contemporaries. Being that the Song of Song is a poetic text; questions of form and content are also applied as they are suitable for analyzing poetic philosophical texts. To nuance my discussion, I also bring in the feminist theologians Janet Soskice and Marcella Althaus-Reid as interlocutors. My essay shows that the relationships between the Lovers are egalitarian and poignantly sexual and include God in a triad of love. It also shows how images of God can become bigger if we dare to mirror both bodily and spiritual love not only horizontally towards each other, but also vertically towards God. This gives us the opportunity not to reduce or limit God, and neither ourselves as beings in reflection of Imago Dei.

Abstract Granfrid, Signe, 2022: Relationen mellan Gud och människa: En genuskritisk analys av Hillsongs musik (The Relationship Between God and human: A Gender Critical analysis of Hillsongs music) Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala studies in Theology and Religious Studies, - Philosophical Specialisation In this essay the relationship between God and human is studied in music produced by Hillsong Church. The overall purpose is to analyse how the relationship is constructed concerning gender and the characteristics of a relationship. I also critically review the theology’s potential to invite people to relate to and live with God. The purpose is reached through an analysis of five of the most essential Hillsong songs; What a Beautiful Name, Who you say I am, Resurrender, Still and From the Inside Out. The method used is a descriptive and critical idea analysis with a hermeneutical approach. The study makes use of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber’s theory of the makings of relationship, which emphasizes mutuality in the present as constitutive, and the Christian feminist theologian Sallie McFague’s thoughts on traditional portrayals of God. The analysis shows that the relationship between God and human lacks mutuality and is built on past experience of God rather than presence with God. God and human relate to one another through their fixated positions; human being broken and unable, and God the benignant rescuer, portrayed traditionally as Father and King. In the last chapter I reflect upon the theology expressed in the songs and present my own constructive contribution. I discuss in what way the human is affected by the theology presented and argue that the context in which interpretation takes place is of key importance. I also discuss different models of God and argue that complex and transcendent ones are needed. I propose a brave theology allowing elaborative thought of different ways to imagine God. Lastly, I discuss the human-divine relationship as such and propose a relational model on the basis of dialogue as a beneficent alternative to the hierarchy-based model found in Hillsong’s music.   Keywords: Hillsong, Models of God, Gender, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), Pentecostal, Human-Divine-Relationship, Worship

Syftet med studien är att utforska psykoterapeuters syn på hur psykoterapi kan svara på lidande hos patienter som upplevt förtryck i kristen hederskultur i frikyrkliga miljöer, samt att bidra till ökad kunskap om målgruppen så att psyko­terapeutkåren bättre kan möta dessa patienter. I studien intervjuas tolv psykoterapeuter med erfarenhet av målgruppen. Studiens resultat visar att terapeuterna beskriver att patient­målgruppens gudsbilder som dualistiska, att patienternas inre konflikter innehöll en negativ självbild och rädsla. Den stora stötestenen verkade konflikten kring en laddad sexualitet vara i relation till teologi, familj och församling. Många terapeuter tyckte att det var viktigt med kulturkompetens i mötet med målgruppen, särskilt de terapeuter som hade egen kultur­kompetens. Uppsatsen ställer frågan om psykoterapeut­kårens beredskap att möta målgruppen.