Soundings in the Theology of the Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship (original) (raw)

2012, Biblical Interpretation

Soundings in the eology of the Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship. Edited by Rolf A. Jacobson. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2011. Pp. xiii + 197. e theological opportunities and challenges posed by the Psalms are explored in this edited volume. e volume grew out of an invited session of the Book of Psalms section at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, at which early versions of four chapters were presented. Rolf Jacobson then solicited additional essays, ending up with eight contributors from an array of Christian theologies, including Reformed, Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, Baptist, and Lutheran, though none of the authors explicitly addresses specific faith-traditions. e opening chapter by Walter Brueggemann is a reprint of his important essay, "e Psalms and the Life of the Faith," originally published in JSOT in 1980. Drawing on Freud and Ricoeur, Brueggemann sees the Psalms functioning to shape reality for ancient speakers-and potentially for modern ones-in the face of earth-shattering experiences. In Brueggemann's typology, different genres of the Psalms serve to construct, maintain, and reinvent a coherent social and cultural ontology. Over the past thirty years, of course, Brueggemann has profoundly influenced the treatment of the Psalms in scholarly, pastoral, and sheer human terms. As a frontispiece for this volume, the essay reminds us how far we have come and raises expectations of new insights into the ways the Psalms mediate deep personal engagement with the divine. Harry Nasuti shares Brueggemann's emphasis on encounters between individuals and the divine. In his essay, "God at Work in the Word," Nasuti points to theologians across the histories of both Jewish and Christian traditions who recognized the power of Psalms and their use of the first-person pronouns for transforming worshippers and positioning them to encounter God. Part of the power emanates from metaphors in which praying individuals can participate, taking on a role vis-à-vis God. Once the roles afforded by the cult were no longer available, Nasuti argues, theologians focused more on metaphors offering roles that individuals could-and still can-inhabit, particularly God as healer or teacher or God as unaccountably absent prosecutor of the wicked. For Nasuti, the Psalms are indispensable; they mediate God's plans for each individual and for humanity. Due to Brueggemann's influence, theologians now recognize the costly loss of neglecting the Psalms of lament. Two authors in the volume, Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford and Joel M. LeMon take a daring step further, arguing that there is also a cost in the nearly universal avoidance of those Psalms of imprecation and violence. Of course the avoidance is understandable. LeMon spells out the theological problem: If prayer shapes belief and belief, in turn, shapes action, then a liturgy that includes imprecation will surely debilitate a community's moral beliefs and lead to degenerate behavior. Historically, this reasoning led some Christian theologians to excise those Psalms from Christian liturgy or hold them up as excuses for excoriating Jews. Both deClaissé-Walford and LeMon forthrightly reject these views. ey note that imprecatory language in the Bible cannot be so easily isolated and effaced; it occurs throughout the Psalter, and in the Christian as well as the Hebrew Bible. Further, they both recognize that imprecations can serve important functions. On some occasions,