The Coherence of Psalms 15–24 (Gregorian Biblical Press 2013) (original) (raw)
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THE STRATEGIC ARRANGEMENT OF ROYAL PSALMS IN BOOKS IV-V
Westminster Theological Journal, 2008
Since the 1970s, there has been an innovative shift in Psalm research with the approach of viewing and understanding the Psalms as a single book. Researchers have thus strived to understand the overall message of the Psalms by studying how they are arranged within their overall structure and how individual psalms are interconnected. A crucial contribution to understanding the message of the Psalms came from identifying the messages conveyed by the royal psalms. Gerald Wilson, a pioneering scholar in this new field of study, revealed the strategic arrangement of these royal psalms. It is now established that royal psalms such as Psalms 2, 72, and 89 are strategically placed at the beginning or end of Books I-III. However, he failed to uncover the strategic arrangement of the royal psalms in Books IV-V. As a result, Wilson's research remains focused on the strategic arrangement of royal psalms in Books I-III. According to his understanding, Psalm 89 depicts the downfall of the Davidic dynasty and the loss of hope in the king due to the Babylonian exile, with the message of the Psalms being to place hope solely in the Lord God as conveyed by Book IV. Since then, systematic research on the arrangement of royal psalms in Books IV-V has been lacking. Although some scholars have studied the strategic placement of individual royal psalms in Books IV-V, a comprehensive study has not been conducted. This paper aims to identify the principles organizing the royal psalms (Psalms 101, 110, 132, and 144) within Books IV-V. This study presumes differences in editorial techniques between Books I-III and Books IV-V but reveals that the final editor of the Psalms employed similar arrangement techniques for royal psalms within sub-groups in Books IV-V. Books IV-V contain six separate sub-groups: Psalms 90-110, Psalms 111-118, Psalm 119, Psalms 120-134, Psalms 135-145, and Psalms 146-150. An important finding from this grouping is that royal psalms are placed at the end or near the end of these sub-groups. Mirroring the arrangement at the end of Books I-III, each royal psalm's conclusion in Books IV-V is followed by a hymn. By revealing the strategic arrangement of royal psalms in Books IV-V, it becomes clear that the message of the Davidic covenant and kingship does not end in despair but continues as a message of hope for the future coming Messiah. Thus, it has become possible to understand the entire Psalter from an eschatological (Messiah-centered) perspective. This eschatological understanding does not refer to the Second Coming of Christ but relates to the eschatology of the Old Testament, particularly concerning the first coming of the Messiah. By revealing the strategic placement of royal psalms in Books IV-V, it is now possible to interpret the message of the royal psalms within the entire Psalter as prophecy concerning the future coming and ministry of the Messiah, transcending past historical contexts. Ultimately, this study significantly contributes to understanding how the New Testament authors applied the Psalms to the Messiah.
Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 33/2, 2019
The included link allows for FREE download of the article for the first 50. ABSTRACT: This study deals with the question of why there is a Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. In previous studies the question has typically been seen as an either-or issue between liturgical, educational, and prophetic use of the psalms. It is shown in this study that all these different uses persisted at least until the end of the Second Temple period, were common to both now biblical and apocryphal psalms, and together contributed to the emergence of a canonical book of psalms. While it will be demonstrated that a division of psalm material cannot be based on such functional indicators or a sense of prestige given to a specific collection of psalms, it will be argued that the Maccabean revolt led to a historical process that incidentally created a watershed between most psalms composed before and after this gradual process. Such markers are visible in the style of the psalms and their functional markers but most of all in a marked shift of perspective from a more general aim to influence the whole people of Israel common to earlier psalms to the consistent use of group perspectives in later works. This shift in the perspective of psalms also contributed to the recontextualization of many earlier psalms to new settings, which further contributed to a later perceivable boundary between the earlier and later psalm material. By focusing on the historical processes instigated by radical societal changes this study offers fresh alternatives for understanding the complex developments that led to the eventual canonization of a book of psalms.
Psalms at the Poetic Precipice
1986
Were we to chart twentieth century scholarly interest in the study of biblical poetry in the manner that financial analysts do the stock market, our graph would show significant peaks during the first twenty years, when some scholars were working out in fine detail the patterns of semantic parallelism that Robert Lowth had described grossly in the mid-eighteenth century, while others were struggling with Hebrew metrics, and evolving what is known as the Ley-Sievers method of determining and describing meter (e.g., Sievers, 1903; Briggs, 1906, pp. xxviii-xlviiii; Gray, 1915, pp. 143-154; Podechard, 1918, pp. 59-62). Thereafter, our graph would continue in a ho-hum, doldrum flat, undulating sporadically in the middle and late fifties as scholars applied the results of earlier work in Hebrew to the Ugaritic literary texts, and then, as work in Ugaritic severed its connection to the biblical umbilical cord, applied insights from Ugaritic to clarify features in biblical poetry (e.g., the...
A Methodology for the Cohesion of Psalms: Psalms 15, 19, and 24 as a Test Case
This is a draft for a chapter of an edited volume titled, Between the Psalms and the Twelve: Exploring the Nature and Shape of Composition, Edited by Matt Ayars & Peter Ho. The inquiry into the design of the Psalter relies on whether the individual psalms it contains reveal a coherent arrangement, on both the level of the collection and the level of the whole. Poetic structural analysis at both levels aids our interpretation of the metanarrative of the Psalter and shapes our expectations about what kinds of poetic devices will unfold at each level. Much like fractal art, the Psalter seems to exhibit self-similarity—in other words, its overarching structuring devices and patterns are similar to those used within itself. In this study, I focus on the structuring and linking devices that occur at the level of the collection. Because the group of Psalms 15-24 has been recognized by various scholars as a highly structured collection, it provides a helpful test case. Psalms 15, 19, and 24 contain various shared elements—repeated words, forms of those words, phrases, themes, genres, and superscripts. In order to assess the cohesion and message of these psalms when read together, I develop a methodology to understand which of these elements are repeated at statistically significant rates. I also explore how these repetitions, much like parallel lines of poetry, function dynamically to move the narrative strand of the collection forward. Finally, I consider how my methodology for discerning the shape of collections of psalms might have bearing on another book with a similar compositional structure and poetic style--the Book of the Twelve. Both texts consist of largely independent units that have been assembled into a whole, and both use poetic techniques to link larger units together at their seams. It is on the questions of the arrangement and shape of anthologies like these that I hope my methodology can shed some light.
Judaism and the Psalms: Life and Liturgy
“Mit meinem Gott überspringe ich eine Mauer”/“By my God I can leap over a wall”: Interreligiöse Horizonte in den Psalmen und Psalmenstudien/Interreligious Horizons in Psalms and Psalms Studies, Christian Frevel, ed. (Herders Biblische Studien 96; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder), 2020
In diesem Aufsatz wird die Stellung der Psalmen im jüdischen Leben und in der jüdischen Liturgie dargestellt. Fragen der Beziehung der Psalmen zur Tora und der Zuschreibung zu König David werden im ersten Teil behandelt. Im zweiten Teil geht es zuerst um den Gebrauch der Psalmen im Rahmen des täglichen jüdischen Gebets. Danach wird das Rezitieren von Psalmen zu besonderen Angelegenheiten im jüdischen Leben kurz angesprochen. Schließlich wird die Frage der aus moderner Sicht schwierigen Stellen in den Psalmen, die in der Liturgie vorkommen, erörtert.
Journal of Biblical Literature, 2012
Recent scholarship has devoted much attention to the arrangement of the MT of the book of Psalms (here referred to as the MT Psalter). The differing arrangements found among the Dead Sea Scrolls have raised many questions. Scholars are not in agreement as to the reasons behind the ordering of the psalms at Qumran, but several theories have emerged. In the following investigation, I will not propose a new theory but will trace redactional activity in two specific psalms—Psalms 133 and 134—in two different arrangements. These two psalms offer a unique opportunity for those seeking to understand the history of books of Psalms, as these psalms stand at the end of the Ascents collection. Regardless of whether the individual Ascents psalms predated the collection, it is clear that the collection served as a source that was shared by both the MT Psalter and 11QPsa. An examination of variations in the Ascents collection allows one to see how psalms fit within larger redactional schemes. Psalms 133 and 134 function in what has come to be known as the “shaping” of the MT Psalter, but they also play a key role in the shaping of 11QPsa.