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Friday, 14 January 2011

Questions - Psalm 1

Terrien in his Commentary on the psalms has a footnote on page 75 as follows:

The text
When editors placed it [psalm 1] at the head of the final collection, it was interpreted as a plea for obeying the written law...

The footnote
The editor of the book of Job had a similar concern when he added the prologue and epilogue to the poem of Job with an altogether different theology.

My question
If a book has a different theology, does it follow that it has a different God?

I have to admit, I do not read psalm 1 or Job as a plea for obeying the written law.

My pondering
No amount of figuring out can arrive at the place of faith. Poetry is a response, not a command. If anything, it undermines a simplistic interpretations of commands. The Law, as Fishbane points out contains 'frequent lacunae or ambiguities' rendering such laws 'exceedingly problematic - if not functionally inoperative - without interpretation' (p 92). The poems of Job and the psalms are not at all for that kind of legal obedience, but their joy comes from the obedience of faith whereby the receiver of gifts is able to articulate a poetic response with theology that does not differ from one to the other.

I have left some questions on whether I should include Hebrew in a book or not - here. I am not sure what I will do with yet another blog. This one is too bulky but ...

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