Charting the Course of Psalms Research: Essays on the Psalms, Volume 1

By Erhard S. Gerstenberger

For the past several decades, Erhard Gerstenberger has been a leader in the study of the Psalms. These essays bring together some of the key contributions that both reflect on the history of interpretation and the path forward for research. Both the student and the experienced researcher will be enriched by the depth and clarity of perspective that Gerstenberger brings. Two of the essays appear here in English for the first time.

Contents
1. The Lyrical Literature
2. Psalms
3. The Psalm Genres
4. Theologies in the Psalms
5. Modes of Communication with the Divine in the Hebrew Psalter
6. The Psalms and Ritual Praxis
7. Non-Temple Psalms: The Cultic Setting Revisited
8. The Psalter as Book and as Collection

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666797435

Book preview

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Charting the Course of Psalms Research

Essays on the Psalms—Volume 1

Erhard S. Gerstenberger

edited by K. C. Hanson

Charting the Course of Psalms Research

Essays on the Psalms, Volume 1

Copyright © 2022 Erhard S. Gerstenberger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3769-1

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-9742-8

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-9743-5

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Gerstenberger, Erhard S., author; Hanson, K. C. (Kenneth Charles), 1951–, editor.

Title: Charting the course of Psalms research : essays on the Psalms, volume 1 / Erhard S. Gerstenberger ; edited by K. C. Hanson.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-6667-3769-1 (paperback). | isbn 978-1-6667-9742-8 (hardcover). | isbn 978-1-6667-9743-5 (ebook).

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. O.T. Psalms—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Classification: bs1430.2 g47 2022 (print). | bs1430.2 (epub).

10/12/22

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and used by permission.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Editor’s Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: The Lyrical Literature

Chapter 2: The Psalms in Form-Critical Perspective

Chapter 3: The Psalms—Genres, Life Situations, and Theologies

Chapter 4: Theologies in the Book of Psalms

Chapter 5: Modes of Communication with the Divine in the Hebrew Psalter

Chapter 6: The Psalms and Ritual Praxis

Chapter 7: Non-Temple Psalms

Chapter 8: The Psalter as Book and as Collection

Bibliography

This collection of Psalm studies written over a period of about sixty years is dedicated to all, students, friends, colleages at Yale Divinity school, the parish of Essen-Frohnhausen, the Escola Superior de Teologia, São Leopoldo, Brazil, the theological faculties of Giessen and Marburg. In particular, however, I am thinking of three good friends, who sometimes sternly rejected one or the other of my conclusions: Erich Zenger, Klaus Seybold, and Patrick D. Miller.

Editor’s Foreword

This volume is the first of three essay collections on the book of Psalms by Erhard S. Gerstenberger. It draws together those essays that focus on the big-picture issues for biblical interpreters.

Gerstenberger is not simply an experienced exegete of the Psalms—he is a trailblazer and leader in the field. It is helpful to put his interpretive work in the context of some of his major publications. Since the publication of his Habilitationschrift in 1980, Der bittende Mensch: Bittritual und Klagelied des Einzelnen im Alten Testament (The Petitioning Person: Petition Ritual and Complaint Song of the Individual in the Old Testament) Neukirchener Verlag (reprint, Wipf and Stock, 2009), he has been recognized as someone who both builds on the exegetical tradition and also forges new paths. In that volume, he creatively uses not only form criticism and tradition history, but anthropology, communication theory, and ritual studies in an integrated way, and throughout with a view to an in-depth analysis of the comparative ancient Near Eastern texts. This broad-ranging approach is seen in the essays of this volume as well.

This path led Gerstenberger to write his two-volume commentary on the Psalms for the series The Forms of the Old Testament Literature (Eerd-mans): Psalms, Part 1: With an Introduction to Cultic Poetry (1988), and Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations (2001). These volumes demonstrate on a text-by-text basis his sensitivity to the genres, the settings, the theologies, and the tradition history, expanding our vision throughout. Especially noteworthy in those volumes is his sensitivity to how the historical experiences in the Babylonian exile and the post-exilic Persian era shifted the frame of reference for many psalms as community worship and synagogal services emerged. And related in this respect is his Israel in der Perserzeit: 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr., in the series Biblische Enzyklopädie (Kohlhammer, 2005), translated as Israel in the Persian Period: The Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E., in the series Biblical Encyclopedia (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011).

Another major work is his Theologien im Alten Testament (Kohlhammer, 2001), which was published in English as Theologies in the Old Testament (Fortress, 2002). This is relevant here because it addresses the major settings of religious experience and ritual practice in the family, the village, the tribe, and the kingdom. Here Gerstenberger brings to the fore how situational religious experience and practice are enacted. This, of course, impinges on how he addresses the issue of setting for the Psalms in particular.

The first two essays in the present collection are reviews of the secondary literature—the first on all of the lyrical literature in the Old Testament, and the second on the history of interpretation of the book of Psalms from a form-critical perspective. While these sorts of reviews might not interest some readers, anyone who wants to develop a clear sense for both the gains of exegetical research as well as some of the dead-end avenues will find them engaging and illuminating. While research has proceeded since these essays first appeared, they remain relevant and helpful touchstones in charting the course of where we have been and where we can go.

The rest of the essays explore the varieties of social settings of the Psalms, the connection between social setting and theology, communication theory, the relationship between psalms and ritual practice, the relationship between so-called wisdom psalms and cult, and the interpretive approach to the book of Psalms in its final form.

It is also relevant to note that just as Gerstenberger continues to pursue his interpretation of the biblical psalms, he has also pursued his longstanding interest in the Mesopotamian tradition. In 2014, in his retirement, he completed another doctoral degree in Sumerian at the University of Marburg, where he taught for so many years. In 2018 it was published as Theologie des Lobens in sumerischen Hymnen: Zur Ideengeschichte der Eulogie (Theology of Praise in Sumerian Hymns: On the History of Ideas of the Eulogy) in the series Orientalische Religionen in der Antike: Ägypten, Israel, Alter Orient from Mohr Siebeck.

As editor, I organized each of the volumes, and I edited them primarily in standardizing the format and notes as well as creating the comprehensive bibliography and indexes. I have also added to the notes and bibliography the recent English translations of two important works: Gunkel and Begrich, Introduction to Psalms (1998; reprint 2002), and Mowinckel, Psalm Studies (2014). I also translated chapters six and eight, with the author’s helpful guidance.

K. C. Hanson

August

19

,

2022

Preface

The Old Testament Psalter comprises an amazing variety of poems. Their common denominator seems to be a thoroughly spiritual and mostly liturgical perspective on life, world, and Deity, as may be suggested already by their poetical forms. This means: The Psalms are definitely not doctrinal treatises or theological pamphlets. Rather they modulate the deepest feelings of individuals or communities, even if they have to be performed in calculated ceremonies by trained experts. The Psalter is surely the richest book (is it really a book?) of the Hebrew Scriptures, in terms of personal commitment, spirituality, openness to the Divine. And it has been commented upon, translated, and retold—as well as having instigated new kinds of psalmic literature through the centuries, which fill libraries.

My own preoccupation with Old Testament psalms grew out of a prior immersion into legal traditions of ancient Israel. It was Hans Walter Wolff who suggested that I investigate apodictic law in the wake of Albrecht Alt’s thesis of its being unique in the Bible. Martin Noth accepted my critical study in 1960 as a doctoral dissertation, Wesen und Herkunft des Apodiktischen Rechts (The Nature and Origin of Apodictic Law, published in 1965 by Neukirchener Verlag; reprint, Wipf and Stock, 2009). Further research especially in cultic regulations stimulated questions pertaining to ceremonial and oral performances, e.g., around sacrifices. The invitation of Rolf Knierim and Gene Tucker to join The Forms of Old Testament Literature commentary team was a strong motivation to fully delve into the study of the Psalms. I worked on this project for many years; the first volume appeared in 1988, the second in 2001 (both published by Eerdmans), and there are no German originals. Also, my habilitation work, again due to a suggestion of Hans Walter Wolff, concentrated on the most frequent genre of Old Testament psalms, the complaints of the individual, published as Der bittende Mensch in 1980 by Neukirchener Verlag (reprint, Wipf and Stock, 2009).

Through all these years of research in the Psalter my conviction that psalmic poetry grew out of diverse and real life-situations kept growing. Not in the sense that each individual text represented a spontaneous utterance captured by chance by an attentive scribe. Artistic language, imagery, style, contents, and intention proved most of the poems to have flown out of the experience of experts in their fields. Neither would the real-life label diminish the importance of literary fixation of extant psalms and their possible use as reading material in literate societies. But the original and enduring Sitz im Leben of the psalms were various performative acts around individuals or social groups and their life-concerns, such as physical and spiritual needs, experienced help and gifts from deities, educative meditations, etc. The psalms thus reflect the wide variety of existential life-experiences in relation to God and the world, the basics of human being. If they are sometimes polemical against other gods or foes and enemies, they are also wide open to foreign influences, experiences of empathy, and desire for peace.

From an interreligious perspective it is small wonder that psalmic poetry is well-known and much used in many other cultures, both ancient and modern. The vast corpus of Sumero-Akkadian literature also contains numerous collections of psalm-genres, which quite often indicate exact descriptions of their performative, ritual use and the performer who would stage the concomitant ceremony. This material always, with its discovery, challenged Old Testament researchers to draw comparisons with ancient Israelite texts and cautiously draw conclusions for the practical use of the latter ones in their different but analogous situations. Traditional societies even today often cling to age-old rituals employing psalm-poetry, which have sprung up as conscious revivifications of ancient ceremonies, for example of the shamanistic type. All this should make us aware of the extraordinary power of performed poetry. I do not hesitate to include modern pop-music, which quite frequently has a cultic character, taking on functions similar to psalmic poetry of ancient times. We may even point out the present-day relationship between written and sung or performed presentations today being in line with ancient customs: written texts are not ends in themselves but underline or assist the orally presented main form of a given psalm or song.

The collection of some of my studies on the Old Testament Psalms, kindly prepared by my friend K. C. Hanson, clearly shows the immense value of this influential, many times acutely important poetry within all Jewish and Christian communities and far beyond their boundaries. There is much to be done for really understanding these precious texts, and even a long life is much too short to achieve such a goal.

Erhard S. Gerstenberger

Acknowledgments

About sixty years of Psalm research, and a final edition of some twenty-four essays in three volumes certainly requires the brains and hands of many people. The author of texts is but the point of crystallization. From beginning to the end, there are many contributors to the finished work (note dedication!). At the end, this collection would not have been possible at all without the vision, energy, and continuous effort of my friend K.C. Hanson, who not only translated two essays (ch. 6 and 8) from the original German, but did all the editing work, including a delightful thematic composition of the widely dispersed articles bringing to light their inner affinity. Furthermore, I want to mention the skillful hands of Wipf and Stock’s technicians and artists, notably Calvin Jaffarian, Jonathan Hill, and in the business sector Jason Robek. To all these architects of the present and coming volumes, my heartfelt thanks. A special word of gratitude must go to the generous first publishers of the selected essays who granted license for reprinting.

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the earlier publications of these essays and permission from the original publishers.

Chapter 1: The Lyrical Literature first appeared in The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters, edited by Douglas A. Knight and Gene M. Tucker, 409–44. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.

Chapter 2: The Psalms in Form-Critical Perspective first appeared as The Psalms, in Old Testament Form Criticism, edited by John H. Hayes, 179–223. Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion 2. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1974.

Chapter 3: The Psalms: Genres, Life-Situations, and Theologies—Towards a Hermeneutics of Social Stratification first appeared in Diachronic and Synchronic: Reading the Psalms in Real Time. Proceedings of the Baylor Symposium on the Book of Psalms, edited by Joel S. Burnett et al., 81–92. LHBOTS 488. London: T. & T. Clark, 2007.

Chapter 4: Theologies in the Book of Psalms first appeared in The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception, edited by Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller Jr., 603–25. VTSup 99. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

Chapter 5: Modes of Communication with the Divine in the Hebrew Psalter first appeared in Mediating between Heaven and Earth: Communication with the Divine in the Ancient Near East, edited by C. L. Crouch et al., 93–113. LHBOTS 566. London: T. & T. Clark, 2012.

Chapter 6: The Psalms and Ritual Practice first appeared as Psalmen und Ritualpraxis. In Ritual und Poesie: Formen und Orte religiöser Dichtung im Alten Orient, im Judentum und im Christentum, edited by Erich Zenger, 73–90. Herders biblischen Studien 36. Freiburg: Herder, 2003.

Chapter 7: Non-Temple Psalms: Their Cultic Setting Revisited first appeared in The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, edited by William P. Brown, 338–49. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Chapter 8: The Psalter as Book and as Collection first appeared as Der Psalter als Buch und als Sammlung, in Neue Wege der Psalmenforschung: Für Walter Beyerlin, edited by Klaus Seybold and Erich Zenger, 3–13. 2nd ed. Herders biblische Studien 1. Freiburg: Herder 1994.

Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

ANET James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969

ANVAO Avhandlinger utg. av det Norske videnskaps-akademi i Oslo

AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament

Bib Biblica

BKAT Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament

BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

FOTL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature

FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

HKAT Handkommentar zum Alten Testament

HKATErg Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, Ergänzungsband

HTR Harvard Theological Review

HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by George Arthur Buttrick. 4 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1962

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

JSS Journal of Semitic Studies

LAI Library of Ancient Israel

LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies

LXX Septuagint

MT Masoretic text

OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis

RB Revue biblique

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien

TB Theologische Bücherei

TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabray. 17 vols. Translated by David E. Green et al. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2021

TRu Theologische Rundschau

TWAT Theologische Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabray. 10 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1973–2015

VT Vetus Testamentum

VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements

VuF Verkündigung und Forschung

WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

1

The Lyrical Literature

Lyrics in the Hebrew Scriptures

Is it appropriate to employ a Greek term to identify a complex body of literature in the Hebrew scriptures? Lyric/lyrical is derived from lyre or harp, and for many it brings to mind images of romantic individualism and sentimentality. However, that part of the Hebrew scriptures under discussion here is all but void of such romanticizing features. Lyrics in this case, even though implying poetry set to music and accompanied by stringed and other instruments, designates compositions deeply rooted in the life and work, war and cult of the Israelite people. No matter how varied such lyrical manifestations may appear, they have in common just this social, festive, and ritual dimension. Thus, if the Greek concept is understood in this extended sense, it can legitimately be applied to this body of Hebrew materials.

The lyrical literature of the Hebrew scriptures is found primarily in the books of Psalms, Lamentations, and the Song of Songs. It is generally recognized, however, that lyrical materials have also been combined with other literary genres in the Hebrew Bible—most notably with narrative, prophecy, and wisdom. Thus, Judges 5 (victory song), Isaiah 12 (thanksgiving hymn), and Job 30 (personal lament), although representing different categories of lyrical literature, are illustrative of the way in which this type of material has been incorporated into a number of different literary contexts. In addition, poetic oratory has influenced the style of a number of other genres in the Hebrew scriptures, although we cannot disregard the differences between the poetic styles of prophecy and wisdom, epic and lyric. However, in spite of obvious points of contact and interrelationship with other literary genres, we must remember that the lyrical materials of the Hebrew Bible constitute a separate body of literature that is distinguishable by particular characteristics. The distinctive linguistic structure of the lyrical literature, its musical qualities, and its ritualistic setting, all serve to identify it as a separate literary genre and consequently call for a method of analysis responsive to the particular characteristics and needs of the Hebrew poetic materials. In addition to providing a general knowledge of the content and form of the Hebrew lyrical literature, the study of this material is significant in view of its influence on our own culture and faith. The Psalms have inspired liturgy, songs, and prayer in both the Jewish and Christian communities. The theological affirmations of this literature have profoundly molded the thinking of many religious figures in the past and continue to play a vital role in modern theological movements, especially in the Third World.¹ Moreover, the ongoing spiritual power of Israel’s poetry transcends its spiritual communities; its influence is discernible not only in the religious sphere but also in modern literature, poetry, and art.²

Research since 1945 on Israel’s lyrical material reflects this widespread influence. Studies with a direct bearing on lyrical literature range from archaeological reports to essays deeply rooted in philosophy and theology, from anthropological observations to historical and literary scrutinies. The great variety of methods and perspectives represented by these studies, as well as the sheer mass of relevant publications, prohibits extensive discussion of all items. The aim of this study, then, is to provide an overview of the research done on the lyrical material of the Hebrew Bible since 1945 and to serve as an introduction to the most significant issues and findings of that research.

Text Criticism

The foundation of any exegetical endeavor is the painstaking work of recovering the oldest possible wording of the text. Unfortunately, because of its very nature and its widespread use throughout its history, the lyrical material in the Hebrew Bible has suffered considerable alteration and corruption. As a result, on almost every page the text poses more problems than the interpreter may be able to solve. In two new areas of research, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ugaritic materials, scholars are attempting to deal with these problems. By looking at their work, we can gain a representative picture of the state of modern text criticism of the lyrical literature.

When the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was announced in 1947, hope was immediately kindled in the scholarly world that this could advance the knowledge of archaic forms of Hebrew writings. However, the edition of the Qumran Psalms scroll³ and its comparison with the Masoretic text (MT)⁴ showed a surprising degree of agreement between these manuscripts, which originated centuries apart. While the Qumran community took great liberty in arranging the psalms and even in including noncanonical psalms, textual variants are at a minimum. Apart from the Psalms scroll, virtually no canonical material of the lyrical type has been found. The only other lyrical texts discovered at Qumran are Hodayot. These thanksgiving songs, however, represent a later stage of psalmody and allow for inference back to the MT only in exceptional cases.⁵

The materials found at Ugarit proved to be an extraordinary stimulus to text-critical work. Excavation began at Ugarit in 1929 and in subsequent years yielded hundreds of tablets containing poetic texts. Analysis of these texts revealed that the Ugaritic language was closely related to Hebrew and that Ugaritic poetic style was quite similar to that of Israelite poetry. Consequently, numerous scholars began to draw on this newly recovered vocabulary and poetic structure in order to solve textual enigmas in the MT, and many emendations and new meanings of difficult terms and passages in the Hebrew scriptures were proposed. The use of Ugaritic materials thus touches not only the establishment of the text but matters of philology as well. A host of specialist from any countries dedicated themselves to this study of the Ugaritic literature: C. Virolleaud, C. H. Gordon, J. Gray, G. R. Driver, R. Dussaud, W. F. Albright, F. M. Cross, M. H. Pope, O.Loretz, L. R. Fisher, J. C. de Moor, A. S. Kapelrud, H. Gese, U. Cassuto, S. E. Loewenstamm, L. Delekat, and many others.

However, none of these scholars has been more prolific than Mitchell Dahood, who has published numerous articles as well as a three-volume commentary on Psalms. Throughout his studies the working premise is that analogies established between the Ugaritic and Hebrew literature warrant direct inference from Ugaritic to Hebrew poetry and vocabulary; consequently, Dahood is largely concerned to emend the Hebrew text on the basis of Ugaritic parallels. To cite but one example: Ps 22:30 reads in Dahood’s translation:

Indeed to him shall bow down

All those who sleep in the nether world;

Before him shall bend the knee

All who have gone down to the mud.

For the Victor himself restores to life.⁶

Two principal emendations lead to this reading. The difficult dšny is held to be composed of the "relative pronoun dī as in Ugaritic and Aramaic, and šēnē < yešēnē, from yāšēn, ‘to sleep.’ The Victor," on the other hand, emerges from an audacious new interpretation of the lexeme l’, which now becomes a "stative participle . . . from l’y, a root frequently attested in Ugaritic and Phoenician."⁷

Many scholars have protested Dahood’s basic assumption and practice, however, as an unjustified and uncontrolled use of cognate material,⁸ and it is unlikely that many of Dahood’s proposals will in the final analysis prove satisfactory. Yet he has made a significant contribution by provoking debate concerning the value and applicability of the Ugaritic materials to the Hebrew Bible in particular and the value of comparative vocabulary and literature studies in general.

Although the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ugaritic tablets have at times clarified difficult Masoretic wording, textual criticism of the Hebrew lyrical literature has basically been proceeding at a slow pace and without spectacular changes. Undoubtedly, scholars will continue to use information derived from such extra-biblical documents, including the newly discovered Ebla texts. Primary emphasis for text-critical studies, however, will continue to be on the Masoretic tradition, with secondary emphasis on the LXX and other ancient versions. Representative examples of this continuing approach in text-critical studies are those of Leveen and Schmuttermayr in Psalms;⁹ Albrektson, Bergler, Dahood, Gottlieb, and Hillers in Lamentations;¹⁰ and Pope and Schneekloth in the Song of Songs.¹¹

Lyrical/Poetic Language

Language is the basic material with which modern interpreters of ancient texts must work. The question in our case, then, is this: Do we find a particular poetic or lyrical language and linguistic structure in the Hebrew Bible? This issue has increasingly entered scholarly consciousness and debate, and much study has been done on the way in which lexicographical and syntactical units are structured in Israel’s poetic literature. This section will discuss these overall cultural patterns of lyrical language. The more individual stylistic elements will be considered in the following section.

As early as 1753, Bishop Lowth described in considerable detail the outstanding characteristic of Hebrew and other ancient Near Eastern poetry—the parallelism of words and ideas in a given poetic unit. Scholars have studied and reevaluated this phenomenon ever since, but the accuracy of Lowth’s observation is still accepted.¹² As Norman Gottwald observes, Parallelism of thought, and corresponding word-mass, is the substance and mode of Hebrew poetic expression.¹³ The continuing study of parallelism has isolated three or