Problems and Prospects in Psalmic Studies

Bring with joy your offerings to my house (Hossfeld's introductory statement for this lecture).

This is the final lecture though I may add some comments on the Student papers from their abstracts later - especially as they might indicate something about the future of Psalms study.

Presenter: Frank-Lothar Hossfeld - a happy person who had noted some points in the very short Q and A sessions when the students were presenting. I had lunch opposite him before his presentation. Then after his presentation, when we had no more time for questions, I mentioned my motivation for study of the psalms from the way they are used in Hebrews as the dialogue between the Father and the Son - and he was most happy to hear this as a motivation to study. Happy is the one to whom the Lord allows study and correction through the Psalter.

Aside: judging from a reading I was doing in the book that arose from the St Andrews conference on Hebrews and Christian Theology, I think it may have been Harold Attridge that I overheard pointing out the psalms as dialogue between the Father and the Son. His final paragraph in his essay is filled with this metaphor.

From the abstract: ... Since the 1980s [post form criticism and Gunkel], psalm and Psalter exegesis has been linked to this method but also exceeds it and has taken into account lectio continua and thus reading the collection of psalms as a Book. In this regard, every psalm has an intra-textual meaning as well as an inter-textual meaning within the context of different groups of psalms and collections. .. In order to explore the message of the psalms as well as the psalter one needs to take into consideration both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the text.... the aim is to indicate 1) theologically fundamental ideas throughout the different phases on the growth process and 2) leading ideas throughout the final shape of the Psalter - for example: the movement from lamentation to praise; the presentation of the history of Israel in the subdivision into 5 books; the relationship of the psalms to the temple as well as to Zion / Jerusalem; the relationship of the kingdom of God to the earthly king in Israel; the relevance of the piety of the poor.

In the Enlightenment, everything came into question. Skepticism was the order ot the day. Hossfeld made three points against the gattungkritik of Gunkel -

1. a few are already 1 form but are separated from context,
2. form prejudices the exegete, not only anthropology but also theology is to be seen in them,
3. the collection bears the impact of an orderly mind.

So: position sitz im buch determines the contextual meaning. (I am so sorry for the German - some terms you know are just untranslatable.) So also there is a Byblos Psalmus, a Sepher Tehillim, a Psalterium, a Torah of David, the Domus Magna of Jerome (and Bob's art gallery). So we must look for links between psalms, twins, clusters, collective superscriptions, groups e.g. 29 in 25-35 or 93-100 (also see my many summaries from the past three months.) There is a meaning as a whole (Wilson 1985 a complex literary structure) but also diachrony corrects synchrony.

From 2010-10-02

Aside: I was reading extensively this afternoon in Suzanne Haik Vantoura 1994  (and a later book, Braun, Music in Ancient Israel, that seemed to know very little about her claims though her book was in the bibliography). SHV comes to the conclusion that all the psalms were written by David because of the unifying effect of the music she has with some justification reconstructed. Let me ask you - can you write in the style of the 16th century? or of Bach? we were all taught to. So the claim of the school of Ibn Ezra is not justified by an equal music. Nonetheless I am delighted with SHV - her work is exactly the process of observation and deduction and confirmation with which I would approach a complex set of application programs.

Remaining notes from Hossfeld - Psalm 104 begins the praise words that are used to the end. Zion as the scene of the Psalter - the place of origin of Torah and prophesy, 75 psalms - God in Zion is a force - is it the mountain? the city? the temple? There is no Zion in Ezekiel. What is its relation to Jerusalem? national vs Zion universal?

Aside: Some of his talk was in German so I missed it - more than a few words. But one little bit he translated as the oscillating centre of dynamic creation of theology. O that we should learn to communicate simply. I was reading John Webster this afternoon and reading the Barth conference over the past week - so many words!

A deceptive cadence: Is Adonai king or is there a human king? The messianic subordinated to the theocratic? Is David an archetype?  After Psalm 89 there is no human king. Psalm 101 continues the themes of psalms 15 and 24. (I had been asking myself where this stepping stone was to 119.)

Finally - his last statements - The new song is already in the Old Testament. Psalms is theology in dialogue with invitation to all who read. No new psalter was written as echo to the appearance of the Son of God. The strongest bridge in the Jewish-Christian dialogue - (Conflict and Convergence being the theme of this conference) is the Psalter.

The Psalter as a Book

Presenter: Klaus Seybold (Basel)
From the abstract: ...to construct the genesis of the Psalter as a book

Psalm 40:8 - in the scroll of the book - does this suggest the formation of a book from an early collection of psalms? Then collecting psalms in exile.

2 Macc 2:13 - And these same things were set down in the memoirs, and commentaries of Nehemias: and how he made a library, and gathered together out of the countries, the books both of the prophets, and of David,

2Qps-a the psalms scroll in cave 4 and 11Qps-b of cave 11, also 4Qps-b and the Masada Ps-a and other fragments with new stichographic writing (expressing the text as lines + cola)

LXX Psalter in the form encountered in the NT Luke 20:42 - And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord (note how the inscription is used as part of the received text). Note also Luke 24:44, Acts 1:20.

Finally the Masoretic codices.

Four factors: collection of psalms in a fixed context, assimilation of the texts to the model 'Psalms', canonical intention of the whole collection as a book of David or a book of Moses, and the production of a sample edition of a biblical book.

All the above with a few interpolations from me is from the Abstract. Klaus Seybold then outlined a seven-step process in the evidence we have for the book of psalms. So I had completely misread this title - thinking it would be a literary reading (which we have already had) and not realizing it would be a diachronic or historical reading of the evidence. (I had been warned in a prior conversation with Prof. Seybold).

Aside: reading Childs this week, canonical intention is a phrase I have seen a few times. Clearly as a gene has no intent, neither does a poem or a collection of poems - but I think we can ascribe intent, particularly the intent to remember and in doing so to make present the history, to the community.

Seybold introduced his talk with an overview of Psalm 40 read historically - as if the scroll of the book was perhaps at least as long as book 1 of the Psalter. So the rescue (Psalm 40:2-6) and the new song (6-12) and the lament (=70) -It is worth reading again - e.g. here. (More prayer than lament and in the Monteverdi at Psalm 70 (69) it is seen together with the anticipation of praise.)

Aside: It is true here that Psalm 40 is quoted in the NT - and in doing so, the NT draws in the full allusion to psalms 40 and 70 and books 1 and 2. The title of Psalm 70 'to Remember' is thus associated with the trouble of David, the salvation of Psalm 22 (note the repeated reference to the great assembly) and the exile - even though this is not explicit in Book 1, it is included by implication in the refrain of Psalm 70 which is לְהַזְכִּיר lechazkir, 'as a memorial' or in the Greek eis anamnesin, exactly what is noted in the Eucharist, (anamnesis), at the elevation (and the translator adds εἰς τὸ σῶσαί με κύριον that the Lord may save me).

Seybold then took us on an imaginary journey through 7 steps in creating the Psalter as a book. (All the following transcribed from notes)

1. First book influenced all the following (Psalm 72:20 Here end the prayers of David 3-41...51-72, 72 interpreted as of David for Solomon)
2. Where? Temple library? copied for performance in Qumran, 2 Maccabees 2 a letter from Pharasaic circles as Nehemiah collected... so Judas ... 2nd C - copied for performance at Qumran
3. 4Qpsalms-a oldest complete pss 5-69, 19 fragments, early semi-formal hand, mid 2nd C BCE, 7.6 meters - 10 meter scroll (huge) 23x11 cm, Isaiah scroll is 7.5 m. (Aside A 10 meter scroll about 50% larger than Isaiah could hold the entire 5 books?) 150 BCE means not copied at Qumran, 5-69 arranged as in MT, ps31-->ps33, ps38-->ps71, superscriptions in the scrolls, 72-150? Did the scroll contain the whole psalter? Text near MT ps 136, 145 longer than MT. 
4. The 11th cave - best preserved 30-50 BCE 29 continuous columns, 52 columns beginning with ps90. Was cave 11 scroll a new collection? 1-89, 2A cave 11, 2B MT, Ed 1+2B Jerusalem Psalter edition? attributed to David were 3600 psalms through prophecy - Qumran read the Psalms as prophecy - (Aside: like the writer to the Hebrews)
5. Stichometric psalms - like Ps 119. 4Q psalms-b Herodian hand 91-118, Masada psalter 20 Nov 1963 81-85 stichometric. 4Qpsalms-c large and long scroll maybe the whole thing. Attempts to express the text as poetry - lines- cola etc.
6. Authors of NT Luke - David says in the book of Psalms, Acts, Peter - probably LXX - no MS available. Earliest ms of LXX is 4th to 5th C CCE. 100 ps texts cited in the NT. Psalms regarded as a prophetic book, history of LXX complicated, superscriptions may be very late in some MSS, Anastasios, Psalm 63. (Perhaps this last reference is to saint Anastasios who commented on psalm 63 - but I have no context nor do I know if this is LXX or MT numbering).
7. Finally MT - texts by assimilation, collection unifies, Book has canonical intention - cave 4 Torah Jerusalem temple centre, Moser psalter - accum to Torah, 5 books not shown in cave 11, Qumran 151 names David as prophet. 4th-3rd C BCE "original"?

Whew! The lecture was well paced so it was not hard to grasp the intent even with all this (to me) unfamiliar detail.

Responder: Professor David Howard (Bethel). First "imaginary" scroll in the German diachronic reconstruction. No thematic analysis as in the American synchronic analysis. Was 11Q psalms canon or liturgy? If liturgy then the order would not be preserved, but psalms would have been selected for copying and reciting / performance. Was it a sectarian canon?

Moses (Jerusalem) and David --- psalms insert --- Messianic thrust. Ps 1 - Torah shape, Ps 89 rejection of David, Royal frame songs in 1-3, David - Messianic king, Exemplar king, powerless fugitive. Counter cultural picture - Does psalter, like Job, critique Deuteronomy? Gerbrant, Patrick Miller, James Grout, R. Cole.

Biblical Studies Carnival

There is a new BS Carnival here at Steven Demmier's blog, one that is new to me. The carnivals give an idea of who's around in the Biblical Studies and related areas.

The Reception of Psalm 137 in Jewish and Christian Tradition

10-09-23 20:30 Presenter Sue Gillingham
Respondent: Jonathan Magonet
Post #24 of a series on the Oxford Psalms Conference

From the abstract: In reception history, it is generally assumed that one of the contrasts is that Jews apply a David centered reading and Christians apply a Christ centered focus... this paper suggests that Psalm 137 speaks most forcefully of human crises, common ground for anyone whose security is threatened... The paper argues for that Psalm 137 offers an ideal paradigm for a life-centred reading, because attention either to David or to Christ is minimal in its reception history. ... In Jewish tradition the emphasis is seen to be more corporate, physical, and political, achieved by creating layers of 'meta-narratives' to the psalm... In Christian tradition the emphasis is seen to be usually more personal and spiritual, concerned not so much with temporal realities as eternal ones, where 'Jerusalem', the heavenly city, is a symbol of a pilgrim faith. Instead of a 'meta-narrative', the psalm is given various allegorical interpretations...

Sue considers that the psalms cited in the NT are limited to 40, of which 4, 2, 22, 110, 118 are prominent and 16 others, with the Fathers also using 1, 8, 34, 45 and 17 others.

A page from the Parma psalter

It is curious to note that psalm 137 has no Davidic heading in the Hebrew but does in the Septuagint. The first strophe of this psalm is corporate and shares the same recurring 'nu' sound as Psalm 44. The second strophe is individual and an oath. The third strophe is perhaps a third voice (per Magonet). The first and last are tied together by the word Babylon and each strophe include the word Remember.

We went through at lightning speed: Babylon and Edom as cyphers for Rome, interpolated Targumim, Kimchi - Titus and the Romans as Edomites, the Parma Psalter, Rossi influenced by Monteverdi, the influence of Allegri on Jewish music in polyphony, Zavel Zilberts 1923, Konrad Schaefer 1948, Abraham Cohen, Abram Chaim Feuer, the Chagall War Tapestry Knesset 1961

Then Christian readings - Jerome, Babel as confusion, harp as pleasure, the tree as the cross. Babylon vs Jerusalem, Origen, Luther Babylon as the church of Rome.

We continued - Babylonian captivity of the church, Griffin of Gloucester Abbey, Coverdale, Milton, By the waters of watertown! forbid it Lord that those who sucked Bostonian breasts...! Byron 1851, Nabucco, Swinburne 1871, Walton Belshazzar's Feast, Rastafari Melodians 1969, John Harbison Four Psalms 1999.

The keywords above do enable a search. It was difficult for me to take the paper in with its examples in order to grasp the nettle of the thesis of the abstract. The number of examples is large - and there are many more even for this one psalm. Clearly the psalms have had a great impact throughout our social tradition. Reception history needs time to be received. I have extended my reporting here with a link to two films that use psalms 137 - The Usual Suspects and Apocalypse Now.

Rabbi Magonet's reply was short and to the point: Don't leave out the anger. The vow in 5/6 is unique in the Bible. Happy occurs 25 times in the Psalms - more than in all the other books put together. In the three parts of the psalm do we have three voices and three memories? Enclose the personal oath with religious voices (strophes 1 and 3).

Can we express anger in a liturgical context? Anger must be offered to God so that it does not turn into a military solution. We are not nice - we need liturgy to deal with these emotions. Do these verses (e.g. also Psalm 79:6) release or fuel anger?

Reading and writing - at the Library

A part of the summary page for Psalm 110:5-6

In the morning I spent another 2 hours with Childs and in the afternoon I looked at and sampled several books on the psalms. I started with the bottom corner of a shelf and worked my way right to left to the next corner. At the beginning of the shelf was Text and Concept Analysis in Royal Psalms (2003) by Randy G. Haney. This is a detailed structural approach, an inventive description of the role of each lexical unit in Psalms 2, 110, and 132. He has a 2 page note on the crux of Psalm 2 - נַשְּׁקוּ-בַר kiss the son. He dismisses all the reconstructions including Holladay's suggestion (VT 28 1978 pp 110-12 which I had just read) of rearranging the spaces between the letters to spell "you who forget the grave". Haney eventually agrees with Craigie (Word Biblical Commentary) and accepts the Aramaic 'bar' for son.

I saw there the complete Les Psaumes Redécouverts - all three volumes where U of O only has one short summary. And all three volumes of the Word Biblical Psalms Commentary where UVIC only has volume 1 - O what riches. They process from 1000 to 1500 new books a week and the place has been hopping each day I have been there. I even bumped into Richard Bauckham three times the first day whom I met in St Andrews - and he kindly gave some advice when books can't be found.

I read in detail Holladay's short essay on translation in The Psalms through 3000 years p 316-329. He shares many of my concerns over typical translations of Psalm 1 including the request to keep the word order for the closure it indicates. And he has an intriguing suggestion of a Janus parallel in Psalm 137. A Janus parallel is a pun that allows simultaneous parallelism through multiple meanings with prior and following cola. He suggests that בְּתוֹכָהּ (betokah) could be read as 'in her midst' or 'in her oppression'. (see BDB p1063, Ps 10:7, 55:11 (Hebr 12)). For other examples of Janus parallelisms see this article on Job.

Here's a tidbit from him (mimenu) on Psalm 103:12 - the Hebrew for 'from us' מִמֶּנּוּ (mimenu) also means 'from him'. The spelling and the pointing are identical. So when we read

as east is far removed from west

so far removed from us/him are our transgressions

they are also removed from him - both senses should be included in the 'meaning' of the one word. The key is to hear the 'us' as inclusive of 'him'.

Here is a little of St Ambrose commentary on 12 Psalms. Having introduced the consequence of sin...

...David put his mind to studying how he could repair the wrong and so shape us anew. Using his gift of heavenly Psalmody he commenced in us a form of conversion... Anyone who reads this book has the means of curing, by special remedy, the wounds of his own passions... This prophet alone among all others foretold what the Lord himself preached in the Gospel.

I also scanned some introductory books (Anderson, Crenshaw, Tanner).

My essay on Translating Biblical Poetry

Beloved - do we know what we are doing?

It is frequently the case in translation that we do not know what we are doing. To pretend otherwise is to be in error. But - not to despair - the Spirit comes to us in our weakness.

Re not knowing - must I list my authorities? I already mentioned Rosenberg and Zlotowitz. Robert Alter has plenty of similar warnings. And if you read a half-dozen grammar books, you will quickly notice that there is considerable discussion on verb forms and not a little confusion of nomenclature. They say some things are untranslatable - and so it is true - for translation betrays as that Italianate phrase (traduttore traditore) goes. But perhaps also translation should trick - that we might fall into joy. So untranslatable is the least of the problems.

What are the problems?

At base there is no one-for-one gloss or word choice between the host and the guest languages

• no knowledge of some words - since perhaps there is only one usage in the corpus that we have
• no native speakers so no insight into nuance
• no knowledge of idiomatic usage

Secondarily - all consequences of the above

• difficult to agree on the precise sense of the grammar
• difficult to be concordant where sound or intertextual allusion is needed - We must learn similar uses of a root and the history etc to learn to hear such potentially distant echoes.
• easy to get a false sounds-alike - e.g. if one uses 'one' as a pronoun, what does one do with the pregnant meaning of 'one' as in shema Israel, adonai elohenu, adonai echad where 'one' is not a pronoun.
• word play is lost
• jokes are obscured

Thirdly - our bias is imposed

• our worship of words
• our piety
• our politics
• our religious persuasion

Enough for the moment - just try it. You will soon encounter the problems and the many decisions made for us by translators.

Consequences

1. my translations are personal (not individual but personal - a person formed in this age for this time and purpose). They are me. To rephrase Chagall, "when I translate, I am in a prayer". They are from me to God and through me from God to you. So it is that you are addressed as Beloved.
2. my translations look for sense, sound, shape, structure, silence. They do not look for modern shibboleths like accuracy or naturalness - but I care for every letter.
3. I cannot pretend to have authority - I just do it. I know my cultural difference with my ancient guests, poet and redactor. I try to receive the text as one who has learned hospitality. I am aware that I am a late-starter, a child, and I make mistakes.
4. re word choices: structure is vital - hear and see it, gaps are vital - don't fill them in. Untranslatable? - coin or transliterate. Voice, point of view, idiom, figure of speech - be open to hearing. Politics - don't translate into a defect in the host language. The distortion is simply too great to bear. If you publish - footnote both uncertainty and allusion. Be prepared for revisions, so let yourself change your mind and in love revisit all your prior decisions. Watch with him one hour.

Notice that I did not use a single square letter in these notes. I am learning that communication in English is also OK and puzzles have their end.

Translating

Can one make a rule about translating a particular root?  Let's start this in an easy way - with just a few words.

nephesh - literal meaning throat, typical 16th century translation, soul, - what is it? the "I" in me, my life, my being, my inmost-being, myself, my self? It is pervasive and common in the text that we have.

shalom - peace, well-being, wholeness, soundness, welfare, completeness

yara - fear, reverence, terror

chesed - lovingkindness, mercy, rebuke, covenant love

I don't think I can make a rule for any of these. If I did, I would be stuck. Take the first two: our presenter presented a slide with nephesh as inmost being and shalom as well-being.

Problems: immediately there is a false sounds-like connection between the two words. [but there is an assonance in the Hebrew! - did it take you 4 years to figure this out?] [Yes - but equally] I would have to translate the first occurrence of shalom in the Bible as "you will go to your grave in well-being" - sorry - that's not going to work. [too many syllables :)] While concordance (same gloss in English for the same lexical word in Hebrew) is more often than not desirable, it is desirable only within limits: where the sound is repeated for effect, and where some degree of intertextual reference is intended. Otherwise, the translator is free to find the gloss suitable to the context.

What about fear - reverence - terror. In Job, there is a stanza that has differing words for fear in the Hebrew - so we must find differing words for it in English (see my post here.) And fear of Hashem is a legitimate start to wisdom - it is not reverence but fear - for this is not a tame lion.

What about chesed? Suppose you made the decision to transliterate and not find an English gloss? You would be stuck - how would you deal with chasid the adjective as applied to God, or how would you deal with chasidim, the plural as applied to the targets of God's chesed?  I think when our language is defective, we may need to coin a word. So if chesed is mercy, chasid is merciful and chasidim are the mercied - the ones who are the target of the loving kindness mediated in covenant with Hashem. (now that's a mouthful).

I have noted already that chasidim are the plural counterpart in the psalms to the singular unidentified ish (man / woman / person) in verse 1 of psalm 1. The singular turns to plural - one righteous produces much fruit - the produce of the earth, the vine of Israel.

Get it?

Four more considerations:

Can one transliterate sometimes? I think so - but I did it only with the word for the tetragrammeton (YHWH) and I preferred to leave it in the Hebrew characters - a thought that I gleaned from John Hobbins of Ancient Hebrew Poetry. Doing this saves a lot of grief in English since a Name behaves better grammatically than a Noun.

Now what about gender inclusiveness. When the host language is defective, it must be changed. Or one must have a disclaimer. English is defective politically. So sometimes I use human instead of man, and earthling or child of dust or the like and sometimes I use 'it' and 'its' for third person common pronouns - works very well in Qohelet especially in the style of Dr Seuss.

In so many ways, I am indebted to the folk at BBB (you know I don't believe in better) and to Kurk Gayle at Mind your Language and to Joel Hoffman at God Didn't Say That - because they have all sorts of commenters who talk about these questions so I don't have to - I can just do it. Kurk has more fun than the lot of them put together.