Continuing the Engagement: Psalms Research Since the Early 1990s

Abstract

Updating the writer's previous essay in Currents, 'Engaging the Psalms: Gains and Trends in Recent Research ' (1994), this extensive essay targets the many diverse books and articles reflecting the multi-faceted research on the Psalms published during the past two decades. While necessarily selective, this survey opens with article and book-length studies focused on the Psalter in its entirety. These studies range from those primarily intended for novice readers, to intricate, in-depth scholarly commentaries. Subsequently, many publications invested in more specific topics are discussed. These address the Psalms in their ancient Near Eastern milieu, probe crucial form-critical and rhetorical-critical issues, and focus on the shaping of the Psalter, its potential as a book of theology, and its reception across the centuries.

Reading the Masoretic Psalter as a Book: Editorial Trends and Redactional Trajectories

“…A review is desirable for two reasons. First, several general reviews of Psalter research have been published over the last two decades or so (Kuntz 1994: 77-106; Seybold 1998: 9-74; Howard 1999: 329-68; 2005: 23-40; Kuntz 2012: 321-78). The history of and literature on the shift from psalm to Psalter exegesis are well documented (Howard 1993a: 52-70; Zenger 1998: 1-58; 2000: 399-436; 2010b: 17-65; Weber 2010: 733-44; deClaissé-Walford 2014a: 1-11).…”