Writing and Rewriting of Psalm 22

Abstract

Rewriting has converted a personal lament psalm into a complex literary work with diverse topics and themes, with distinct genres and settings, and with opposite and contradictory meanings. We can discover the original psalm by unravelling the editorial process and by observing the revision techniques of repetition, reversal and cross reference. What characterizes the second edition of the psalm is a gradual shift from individual experience to the concerns of the whole community. The reviser draws on historical tradition to transform the earlier composition into a new story with an entirely different theological perspective.