Sarah Grove: Investigated Death and Afterlife Imagery in the Wisdom Text
Religion major Sarah Grove’s decision about which topic to select for her senior thesis was surprisingly simple.
Sarah had become fascinated with the wisdom text after taking one of Dr. Bucher’s seminars. Separately, she also was curious to investigate depictions of the afterlife and death imagery in the Hebrew Bible and Intertestimental literature. Both of these interests – along with her aptitude for translating Hebrew – led her to her senior thesis titled “Death, Wealth, and Shepherds: The Afterlife Experience Presented in Psalm 49.”
Psalm 49 proved to be a challenging text with which to work. Although not clear to her at first, she quickly learned that Psalm 49 addresses not only issues of death and the afterlife, but it also highlights the inequality between wealth and poverty. Death and social injustice presented in conjunction with Psalm 49 guided Sarah’s thesis, which argued that the righteous but poor Psalmist hopes that God will provide him with an individual afterlife experience even though God serves as the ultimate form of social justice.
Sarah hopes that her investigation into Psalm 49 will enlighten the field of Biblical Studies as scholars continue to explore the concept of the afterlife and the topic death in the Hebrew Bible. “Writing this thesis has given me confidence to realize that I can be an effective, informative, scholarly voice within the field of Biblical Studies,” reflects Sarah.
Project Title: "Death, Wealth, and Shepherds: The Afterlife Experience Presented in Psalm 49"
Date: Scholarship and Creative Arts Day 2008 – Tuesday, April 22
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Christina Bucher
Sarah is one of several student scholars from Elizabethtown’s Department of Religious Studies who will present during Scholarship and Creative Arts Day 2008. A full schedule of this and other events featuring the creativity and scholarship of Elizabethtown students is now available on the Scholarship and Creative Arts Day webpage.
