Psalm 29, a sacred text in Jewish and Christian Bibles, has been understood in a variety of ways through time and in different traditions. This volume presents a sample of the use and meaning derived from a single biblical text. From the earliest translations to contemporary African Independent Churches, this psalm has been an integral part of synagogue and church; but what it has meant and how it is used is a fascinating journey through human culture. Not only the understanding of the written word, but also the liturgical use and the musical adaptations of a biblical text are considered here. This is a book for anyone - scholar, student, or laity - with an interest in the Bible in its many contexts.
Psalm 29, a sacred text in Jewish and Christian Bibles, has been understood in a variety of ways through time and in different traditions. This volume presents a sample of the use and meaning derived from a single biblical text. From the earliest translations to contemporary African Independent Churches, this psalm has been an integral part of synagogue and church; but what it has meant and how it is used is a fascinating journey through human culture. Not only the understanding of the written word, but also the liturgical use and the musical adaptations of a biblical text are considered here. This is a book for anyone--scholar, student, or laity--with an interest in the Bible in its many contexts.
In this penultimate volume of his series on preaching Christ from the Old Testament, Sidney Greidanus offers expert guidance for busy pastors on preaching Christ from Psalms. Beginning with a general introduction on how pastors can interpret and preach from the biblical psalms — and why they should — Greidanus proceeds by discussing twenty-two psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, supplying the building blocks necessary to preach from Psalms at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and other major days and seasons of the church year. In addition to laying out basic homiletical-theological approaches suitable for each selected psalm, these chapters also provide verse-by-verse exposition, bridges to Christ in the New Testament, and ideas for placing the psalmist’s words into contemporary context.
In this examination of Zion theology and how it arises in the book of Psalms Antti Laato's starting-point is that the Hebrew Bible is the product of the exilic and postexilic times, which nonetheless contains older traditions that have played a significant role in the development of the text. Laato seeks out these older mythical traditions related to Zion using a comparative methodology and looking at Biblical traditions alongside Ugaritic texts and other ancient Near Eastern material. As such Laato provides a historical background for Zion theology which he can apply more broadly to the Psalms. In addition, Laato argues that Zion-related theology in the Psalms is closely related to two events recounted in the Hebrew Bible. First, the architectural details of the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 6-7), which can be compared with older mythical Zion-related traditions. Second, the religious traditions related to the reigns of David and Solomon such as the Ark Narrative, which ends with David's transfer of the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6). From this Laato builds an argument for a possible setting in Jerusalem at the time of David and Solomon for the Zion theology that emerges in the Psalms.
The Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha and Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The New Testament present a balanced synthesis of current scholarship on the Bible, enabling readers to interpret Scripture for a complex and pluralistic world. Introductory articles in each volume discuss the dramatic challenges that have shaped contemporary interpretation of the Bible. Commentary articles set each book of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha in its historical and cultural context, discuss the themes in each book that have proven most important for the Christian interpretive tradition, and introduce the most pressing questions facing the responsible use of the Bible today. The writers are renowned authorities in the historical interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, sensitive to theological and cultural issues arising in our encounter with the text, richly diverse in social locations and vantage points, representing a broad array of theological commitment—Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and others, and alive to the ethical consequences of interpretation today. A team of six scholar editors and seventy contributors provide clear and concise commentary on key sense units in each book of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament. Each unit is explored through the lenses of three levels of commentary based on these critical questions. The result is a commentary that is comprehensive and useful for gaining insights on the texts for preaching, teaching, and research. In addition to the commentary essays on each book, the volumes also contain major essays that introduce each section of Scripture and explore critical questions as well as up-to-date and comprehensive bibliographies for each book and essay.
The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one's last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible. A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading.
The issue of how to represent God is a concern both ancient and contemporary. In this wide-ranging and authoritative study, renowned biblical scholar Mark Smith investigates the symbols, meanings, and narratives in the Hebrew Bible, Ugaritic texts, and ancient iconography, which attempt to describe deities in relation to humans. Smith uses a novel approach to show how the Bible depicts God in human and animal forms—and sometimes both together. Mediating between the ancients’ theories and the work of modern thinkers, Smith’s boldly original work uncovers the foundational understandings of deities and space.
An indispensable resource for students and scholars, The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms features a diverse array of essays that treat the Psalms from a variety of perspectives. Classical scholarship and approaches as well as contextual interpretations and practices are well represented. The coverage is uniquely wide ranging.
Presents a balanced synthesis of the scholarship, enabling readers to interpret Scripture for a complex and pluralistic world. This book discusses the dramatic challenges that have shaped contemporary interpretation of the Old Testament and Apocrypha.
Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two provides the first ever extensive commentary on the Jewish and Christian reception history of the first two books of the Psalter (Psalms 1-41 and 42-72). It explores the various uses of the Psalms, over two millennia, in translation and commentary, liturgy and prayer, study and preaching, musical composition and artistic illustration, poetic and dramatic imitation, and contemporary discourse. With lavish illustrations, using examples from both music and art, Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two offers a detailed commentary on each psalm, with an extensive bibliography, a large glossary of terms, and helpful indices. It is an ideal resource both for students and scholars in the academy and for lay people and ministers in church and synagogue. Psalms Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley Blackwell Commentary series. Further information about this innovative reception history series is available at www.bbibcomm.info
