The Affective Potential of the Lament Psalms of the Individual (original) (raw)
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Evocating Contexts: Experiencing Psalm 88 in Three Settings
2018
Looking at the darkest Psalm as not theology but as phenomenology formed in and through three contexts: as an original ritual experience and reflection in writing (COMPOSITION), as an articulation of the experience of the Exile (CANON), and as an eternally-relevant touchstone for traumatic events (SCRIPTURE). Includes an original translation of the text from the Hebrew. Submitted to the Rev. Dr. Melody Knowles as the final assignment in a seminary class on the Psalms.
Poetry and Emotion in Psalm 22 (Part 1)
JESOT, 2021
This study examines how the Hebrew poetry of Psalm 22 expresses the emotions of the psalmist and the potential transformative effort upon the emotions of an engaged reader. Part 1 establishes a working definition of emotion as the perception and evaluation (‘construal’) of a situation or object, grounded in a personal interpretative framework. The manner in which Hebrew poetry may express emotion is then examined in light of how poetic techniques show how the psalmist perceives and evaluates their situation, particularly through sensory language, metaphor, and narrative structure. These techniques combined with the implications of the psalms as songs show how the psalmist’s construal may affect the reader as they are encouraged to experience the situation as the psalmist does, and so ‘feel’ what they feel. A selective exegetical study of the Hebrew text of Psalm 22 will then begin, with particular attention paid to how the text expresses emotion and its potential effect upon an engaged reader. Part 2 will complete the exegetical study and employ it as the basis for wider theological reflection on topics such as the causality of emotions, and especially the importance of ‘performance’ to link authorial expression with effect upon the reader. The engagement of performance allows the reader to perceive the situation and self of the psalmist as it is expressed in the psalm, and so be affected by it.
Lamenting or Demented? The Psalmist-Subject of the Complaints and the Possession at Loudun
In an effort to investigate the poetic contours of lament as a consequence of subjectivity, this essay reads the lamenting subject in the Complaint Psalms against the backdrop of Michel de Certeau's evaluations of the Ursuline nuns in the Possession at Loudun. The 17th-century nuns, possibly as part of a response to the major metaphysical crisis of a plague, began to exhibit signs of possession, and eventually an elaborate system of classification and exorcism developed around their illness. A major interest for Certeau, and for this essay is not, however, the actuality of demon possession, but the apparent creation, social control and management of alterity—in the nuns' case, madness—in the psalmist's case, (hysterical) lament. In the psalms, lamentation provides a means of articulating an alternative reality, one that has its own conventions and limitations. In this context, the lamenting utterance threatens to position the subject of the psalms as a place of siege; the subject fights to be heard above the din of " normality " and the rigours of divine expectation. Moreover, his body is a contested site for enemies and illness, among other afflictions. On the other hand, though, the ultimate act of confession at the end of the complaints threatens to undermine his existence, to make him vanish into that very context from which he initially differentiated himself as a speaking subject. The essay considers, therefore, the psalms' alternative reality as the locus of a balancing act between the subject's complicity and annihilation. This, in turn, is pondered within the context of poetic discourse, which might be viewed as an impulse to showcase—and manage— " possession ". Though much has been written on the individual psalms of lament (or complaint psalms), 1 both singly and as a corpus, the bodily act of making lamentation in the psalmic literary culture would still benefit from further investigation. By this I mean that the literary (formal) characteristics of these psalms have been intensely scrutinized by scholars, but the poetics of lament, specifically as it bears on the body and the subject who speaks the lament, remain cloudy. 2 Indeed, the complaints play out an intriguing dynamic around speaking, grief, and the body in pain, where in speaking and portraying his body, the lamenter is in effect in negotiation with his agency as subject. This paper explores that dynamic through a somewhat unconventional means. In an effort to investigate the poetic contours of lament as consequential to subjectivity, I read the lamenting subject in the complaint psalms against the backdrop of Michel de Certeau's evaluations of the Ursuline nuns in the Possession at Loudun. The commonality that I explore here is not possession (by demons) per se, but the apparent creation, social control and management of alterity that is at play in both the nuns' madness and the psalmist's lament. So designated because of their formal characteristics, one might say that the complaint psalms are anatomically bound: their prescribed forms (pre)condition their identification. In addition, it
Delighting in the Torah: The Affective Dimension of Psalm 1
Old Testament essays, 2010
It is argued in this article that the common interpretation of Ps 1 as a call for obedience, a view exemplified by Walter Brueggemann’s influential article, “Bounded by Obedience and Praise: The Psalms as Canon,” does not quite capture the emphasis of the text. While it is true that Ps 1 affirms the lifestyle of the “righteous,” righteousness is not limited to or equated with “obedience.” The psalm points to the affections rather than to behaviour as the key element of the righteous person—“his delight is in the Torah of Yahweh” (Ps 1:2). Instead of calling for obedience to the Torah, Ps 1 evokes affection for the Torah. This important move suggests that the study of biblical poetry in general and of the Psalms in particular can benefit from an approach that is attuned to the passions that are inherent in the text and the passions that are brought to the text by the interpreter. A INTRODUCTION Recent studies of the Psalms have continued to include generous attention to the canonical...
This thesis seeks to develop a new method of interpretation for lament psalms and to apply it to Psalms 13, 22, 44, 88. The new method is called Theo-dramatic approach. This method recognizes lament psalms as dialogical prayers, (multivoicing) which describe the drama of suffering experienced by the psalmists. The Theo-dramatic approach is an imaginative method of interpretation. The most important elements are: the script, the theatre and the performance. The actors are: God, the supplicant, the enemy, the community. Script: lament Psalms: 13, 22, 44, and 88, were chosen because they demonstrate much of the vocabulary of the absence or hostility of God. Theatre: the public space provided by the covenant relationship between God and pray-er. Performance: the dramatized grief and pain of the psalmist, caused by the hostility or absence of God. This method of interpretation emphasizes the drama presented in the script: protest, argument, accusation of God for being unfaithful to the covenantal responsibilities. It affirms that God’s behaviour is sometimes different from how people understand his character. But the relationship between God and the sufferer continues despite God’s strange behaviour (absence or hostility), because God is challenged to come onstage and bring deliverance to the supplicant, is invited to walk with him/her and bring onstage the experience of his healing presence. The suffereriii realises that he/she has a choice – he/she could try to stuff the hurt in a closet, pretend it wasn’t there and wish it disappeared, or chose to bring it out into the open to face it head-on, trudge through it, feel its full weight, and do the best to confront the feeling of loss and hopelessness with the truth of God’s Word at every turn. The power of the performance draws the reader onstage to work through their own experiences of God as absent or hostile, hence giving creative expression to difficult life experiences. To groan with sorrow and anger is part of being human, is that when you lose the relationship with God that is so valuable to you, you agonize over this loss, and there is nothing wrong with that. Your tears and cry of anger do not reflect a lack of faith, but a strong faith in the only one who has the healing power, if he just want to present himself on the stage. Applying this method helps the reader to be a participant in the drama played onstage. Human life and the journey of faith imply dramatic events. The relationship with God is a risky and adventurous path.
Psalm 22 is part of a body of liturgical poetry that is integral to Judaism, and for Christians, the dying Jesus quotes Psalm 22 in the Passion narratives. The psalmist eventually moves away from lamenting one's situation and towards praising YHWH, which is a normal, key characteristic of Hebrew psalms of individual lament. In this essay, praise and lament in the historical, geographical and cultural context of the Near East will first be briefly examined, before turning to a close reading of the language and literary devices used within the different sections of Psalm 22 itself.
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2017
In God in the Dock, Carleen Mandolfo argues that the move from second person speech to God to third person description of the divine within “dialogic psalms” reflects the “interjection” of a secondary voice. While her focus on speech to a human audience is significant, the criteria she employs prove problematic. Rather than multiple voices, the psalms Mandolfo discusses are better understood as reflecting shifts in address between multiple audiences spoken by a single supplicant.
How Things Feel: Biblical Studies, Affect Theory, and the (Im)Personal
This essay is an attempt to do an intellectual history, one of affect theory both within and without biblical studies, as an ecology of thought. It is an “archive of feelings,” a series of thematic portraits, and a description of the landscape of the field of biblical studies through a set of frictions and express discontentments with its legacies, as well as a set of meaningful encounters under its auspices. That landscape is recounted with a fully experiential map, one drawn with as much capacity for precision and self-relativizing as I can muster, and one that also intentionally relativizes those more dominant sources and traditional modes of recounting intellectual history. Affect theory and biblical studies, it turns out, both might be described as implicitly, and ambivalently, theological. But biblical studies has not only typically refused explicit theologizing, it has also refused explicit affectivity, and so affect theory presents biblical studies with both its own losses and new and vital possibilities.
An Object-Relations Analysis of Psalm 131
Psalm 131 employs the metaphorical imagery of an infant and mother to portray the relationship between the psalmist and YHWH. Since this imagery is critical in understanding the psalmist and the overall message of the psalm, I utilize psychoanalytical Object-Relations theory in reading the psalm. This interpretive framework offers insights into the language, structure, and movement of the psalm that might otherwise be overlooked. This essay reveals the foundational role of YHWH, particularly in relation to his absence and presence as primary caregiver in the development of the false self and the restoration of the true self-identity of the psalmist. The restoration of the psalmist's true self-identity is further supported by the larger canonical context in which the Torah of Psalm 119 functions as an object-relations transitional object for the psalmist.