Stephen J. Smith enters the lively field of editorial-criticism of the
Hebrew Psalter or Psalterexegese with this detailed investigation into
the final form of Psalms 73-83. In the book, he engages scholarly
disagreements over this collection's structure, the degree and nature
of its literary unity, and the primary theological message(s) it
communicates. Smith argues that the sequence of Psalms 73–82 - and
possibly 83 – has a deliberate design that reflects a sustained
focus on addressing, and resolving, a multidimensional collision
between “faith” (i.e., core Israelite beliefs about God) and
“experience” (i.e., the individual/community's lived experience of
God) that was precipitated by God's prolonged absence in the Temple's
destruction (c. 586/587 BCE). Parting ways with previous scholarship,
Smith contends that a recursive organizing principle rooted in
biblical parallelism structures the collection. Over the book's nine
chapters, he makes the case that the editor(s) grouped its psalms into
two major blocks (74-78; 79-82) of two sub-groupings each (74-76,
77-78; 79/82, 80-81) in order to develop a single topic in multiple
dimensions: the severe threat that God's prolonged absence in the
temple's destruction posed to the ongoing viability of various core
Israelite beliefs about God, most fundamentally God's goodness. Smith
makes the case that the collection is shaped to resolve this crisis by
bolstering the reader's confidence in, and commitment to, these
beliefs in the face of their apparent failure.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780567702746
Publisert
2022
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter