Recent Volume on Psalms Scholarship

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This massive tome on Psalms scholarship has recently come into my possession:

Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller, eds., with the assistance of A. Brunell and R. Roberts, The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Vetus Testamentum Supplements 99; Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature 4; Leiden/Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005). Pp. xx + 680. Cloth, 179.00, US$241.00. ISBN: 90 04 13642 8. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com

While I will be writing a review of this work for the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, I thought I would preview it here first to whet your appetites (and give you time to save your money so you can afford to purchase it!).

This volume, edited by Peter Flint and Patrick Miller, is the most recent in the “Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature” series produced by Brill. This series examines the prehistory, contents, themes, reception and interpretation of select books of the Hebrew Bible. Much in this volume does just that, though perhaps the most glaring omission that I noticed as soon as I perused the table of contents is the complete lack of any chapter on the Dead Sea Scrolls (there are, however, two chapters on the Psalms in the Syriac tradition!). I personally do not understand how a volume on the composition and reception of the Psalter can not have a chapter devoted to the significance of the so-called Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPs-a). This lacuna is all the more obvious considering that one of the editors of the volume is Peter Flint!

This volume contains a number of excellent essays on various aspects of Psalms scholarship, many by seasoned Psalms scholars like Broyles, Brueggemann, Gerstenberger, Koch, McCann, Seybold, Wilson, and Zenger.

The volume is divided into five major sections. Here is a listing of the esays:

Part One: General Topics

Klaus Koch, “Königspsalmen und ihr ritueller. Hintergrund: Erwägungen zu Ps 89, 20–38 and Ps 20 und ihrer Vorstufen” (9-52); Rolf Rendtorff, “The Psalms of David: David in the Psalms” (53-64).

Part Two: Commentary on or Interpretation of Specific Psalms
Adele Berlin, “Psalms and the Literature of Exile: Psalms 137, 44, 69, and 78” (65-86); David Noel Freedman and David Miano, “Non-Acrostic Alphabetic Psalms” (87-96); J. J. M. Roberts, “Mowinckel’s Enthronement Festival: A Review” (97-115); Beat Weber, “Zum sogennanten “Stimmungsumschwung” in Psalm 13″ (116-138); Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, “An Intertextual Reading of Psalms 22, 23, and 24” (139-152); Dennis Pardee, “On Psalm 29: Structure and Meaning” (153-183); John S. Kselman, “Double Entendre in Psalm 59” (184-189); Richard J. Clifford, S.J., “Psalm 90: Wisdom Meditation or Communal Lament?” (190-205); Michael L. Barré, “The Shifting Focus of Psalm 101” (206-223); Sung-Hun Lee, “Lament and the Joy of Salvation in the Lament Psalms” (224-247); Craig C. Broyles, “Psalms Concerning the Liturgies of Temple Entry” (248-287); James W. Watts, “Biblical Psalms Outside the Psalter” (288-309).

Part Three: The Psalter as Book, Including Smaller Collections
Harry P. Nasuti, “The Interpretive Significance of Sequence and Selection in the Book of Psalms” (311-339); J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Shape of Book I of the Psalter and the Shape of Human Happiness” (340-348); Michael Goulder, “The Social Setting of Book II of the Psalter” (349-367); Klaus D. Seybold, “Zur Geschichte des vierten Davidpsalters (Pss 138-145)” (368-390); Gerald H. Wilson, “King, Messiah, and the Reign of God: Revisiting the Royal Psalms and the Shape of the Psalter” (391-406); Erich Zenger, “Theophanien des Königsgottes JHWH: Transformationen von Psalm 29 in den Teilkompositionen Ps 28-30 und Ps 93-100” (407-442).

Part Four: Textual History and Reception in Judaism and Christianity
Albert Pietersma, “Septuagintal Exegesis and the Superscriptions of the Greek Psalter” (443-475); Moshe Bernstein, “A Jewish Reading of Psalms: Some Observations on the Method of the Aramaic Targum” (476-504); Robert J. V. Hiebert, “The Place of the Syriac Versions in the Textual History of the Psalter” (505-536); Harry F. Van Rooy, “The Psalms in Early Syriac Tradition” (537-550); Craig A. Evans, “Praise and Prophecy in the Psalter and in the New Testament” (551-579).

Part Five: Theology of the Psalter
Walter Brueggemann, “The Psalms in Theological Use: On Incommensurability and Mutuality” (581-602); Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Theologies in the Book of Psalms” (603-625).

The volume includes five helpful indices: Scripture, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Other Ancient Writings, and Modern Authors.

A Tribute to Professor Hans Peter Ristau

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This last Thursday I had the privilege of attending a retirement party for one of colleagues, Prof. Hans Peter Ristau. What was special about this event is that Prof. Ristau was not only my colleague, but also my former undergraduate professor and a big reason why I followed the career path I did.

Peter Ristau was Professor of Old Testament at North American Baptist College (now Taylor University College) for some 33 years. When I first enrolled at NABC some 20 years ago, I knew little about the Bible, and pretty much nothing about the Old Testament. During my time as a student at NABC I took as many courses from Prof. Ristau as I could. These courses expanded my knowledge of the Old Testament, encouraged me to examine the Hebrew Bible from a number of different perspectives, and — most significantly — instilled in me a deep love of the Old Testament and a desire to make its study my lifelong goal.

I have many fond memories of Prof. Ristau’s courses. His courses were challenging — especially for a generation raised on sound-bites and TV. His tests were fair, though comprehensive (I will forever remember Old Testament personalities such as Shamgar, Abishag, Ehud, Shear-Jashub, and many others). I particularly recall his overheads — they were literally filled with valuable data so there was hardly a space left blank with little or no margins. His courses were definitely not for the faint of heart and they developed quite the reputation. Significantly, in his courses I was introduced to some scholars who would be formative for my early understanding of the Bible such as Brevard S. Childs and John Goldingay.

Outside of the classroom Prof. Ristau was always accessible to students — at least if you came between the hours of 6 am and 3 pm (he was known for his early mornings!). And it seems whenever you came to his office he would be pouring over one of the many books scattered on his desk — but significantly he would put the book down and give you his undivided attention while you were there (see the picture from my 1985-86 yearbook above).

I also appreciated Prof. Ristau’s friendship after I graduated from NABC and moved on to further studies. Whenever I would come back to Edmonton to visit family I would make sure to drop by NABC and visit. It was with some surprise in 1997 when I was contacted by the College and invited to apply for the position of Old Testament professor. It was only then that I heard about Prof. Ristau’s failing health and his decision to go on long-term disability. I ended up getting the position and following in his footsteps as professor of Old Testament at NABC. So for the last eight years we were colleagues and even though Prof. Ristau was not able to teach during those years, we continued to stay in contact. His official retirement occurred this last academic year.

Now that he is retired, Prof. Ristau can actually come back and teach. I am looking forward to this upcoming academic year when he’ll teach an introductory course on the Prophets at Taylor.

I should be quick to add that I am only one of countless students whose lives have been influenced by Peter Ristau. I am also not the only student who Peter has inspired to do further studies in the Old Testament. Dr. Bill Anderson studied with Peter and went on to doctoral studies in Hebrew Bible at University of Glasgow. Dr. John Harvey similarly studied Old Testament at the University of Toronto. I should also mention his son, Ken Ristau, who was one of my students at Taylor and is currently in the midst of doctoral studies in Hebrew Bible at Pennsylvania State University under the supervision of Dr. Gary Knoppers.

Bravo for Batman Begins

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I went to see Batman Begins last night and was suitably impressed, to say the least. The look of the film was stunning and reminded me a bit of Blade Runner. The special effects were awesome but not overwhelming. The cast — led by Christian Bale (of American Psycho infamy) as Bruce Wayne/Batman and including other fine actors such as Michael Caine (Alfred), Liam Neeson (Henri Ducard), Katie Holmes (Rachel Dawes), Gary Oldman (James Gordon), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), and Rutger Hauer (Richard Earle) — was magnificent. But the best part of the film was the actual script. I know it’s hard to believe that an action film would have a great script, but it does. I could say more, but suffice it to say that Batman Begins is everything that I hoped Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith would be. Perhaps Christopher Nolan (director and co-screenwriter) and David S. Goyer (co-screenwriter) should write a book on Character Development and Dialog for Dummies and give George Lucas a complementary autographed copy.

Speaking of Star Wars, Jeffrey Overstreet has a hilarious dialog between Darth Vader and Batman on his Looking Closer Webpage (“Hey there, Dark Lord!” “Greetings, Dark Knight! Nice cape.” “You too! Capes are cool, no matter what the Incredibles tell you.”), as well as a very insightful review. Peter Chattaway also has some insightful comments on his FilmChat blog, and Ken Ristau’s musings on anduril.ca are also worth a look.

A Jewish Perspective on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ

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Mark Goodacre notes on his NT Weblog a recent article on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) that examines the response to the film from a Jewish perspective. The article, “The Passion by Mel Gibson: Enthusiastic Response in the Catholic World, Restrained Criticism by the Jews,” by Sergio I. Minerbi appears in the online journal Jewish Political Studies Review 17:1-2 (Spring 2005).

The article provides a much needed Jewish perspective on The Passion, highlighting the uncritical way that Christians (including evangelicals but especially the Catholic Church, according to Minerbi) embraced the film and the lack of significant opposition from Jews.

I tried to have a variety of perspectives represented in the public lecture I organized on the film last year (14 April 2004) entitled, “Mel’s Passion: An Analysis of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ from Evangelical, Catholic, and Jewish Perspectives.” Rabbi David Kunin of Beth Shalom Synagogue, Edmonton, presented a Jewish perspective and Rev. David Norman, O.F.M., Professor of Systematic Theology at Newman Theological College, Edmonton, presented a catholic perspective, while yours truly gave an “evangelical” assessment. The three lectures (in MP3 format) are available for free download from the Public Lectures section of my website.

Snow in Sheol? (or Macs with Intel Inside!)

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First, I have to say, I love my new Macintosh. Mac OS X (Tiger) is an elegant operating system and my dual processors are quite impressive on the speed side of things. That being said, I was surprised to hear that Apple is switching to Intel (OK, breathe deeply now).

I watched Steve Jobs’ entertaining keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (you can see it here). He talked about a coming “third transition” for the Mac and announced that Apple will be moving to Intel processors (the first transition was from 68k to PowerPC Macs and the second from OS 9 to OS X).

Why would Steve do this? It seems that the primary reason is performance. Projections looking at power consumption (performance per watt) shows the PowerPC chip stalling at around 15 versus Intel projections reaching 70. Whether you like it or not, starting next year Apple will introduce the first Intel Macs and complete the transition by the end of 2007. It’s interesting to note that this isn’t a sudden change for Apple. It actually has been in the works for the last five years as MacOS X is cross-platform by design.

So while it may be snowing in sheol,* it appears the future of the Macintosh is pretty hot.

For some interesting views on this announcement, see the blog entries by Rubén Gómez, Ken Ristau, and Joe Weaks.

*Just in case you are wondering, the term sheol (‏‏שׁאל) is one of the Old Testament terms used for the abode of the dead. It’s not the same as the Christian idea of hell as both the righteous and wicked go down to sheol. Rather it’s a shadowy existence where everyone goes after death.

Provisional Edition of NETS Translations Available

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I attended Al Pietersma’s annual BBQ last Saturday while I was in Toronto (before heading off to the CSBS meetings in London, ON). The food and drink was great as usual, as was the company. It was great to be able to catch up with Al and other friends such as LXX scholars like Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Rob Hiebert, Claude Cox, and Tony Michaels.

Al has been quite busy editing the volumes of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), among other things. The translation is coming along quite well and an exciting development is that provisional editions of most of the books are now available from the NETS website.

LXX PsalmsNETS is a new translation of the Greek Jewish Scriptures, entitled A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (the full title is quite a mouthful!). One volume is published thus far:

A New English Translation of the Septuagint: Psalms (Albert Pietersma, translator; Oxford University Press, 2000). Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com


For more information on this project, see the NETS webpage.

Final Thoughts on 2005 Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Meeting

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This year’s CSBS meeting at the University of Western Ontario was, IMHO, a real success. I thought that the Hebrew Bible sessions were filled with interesting papers (see my previous CSBS posts), the university itself was a great place to visit, and the highpoint for me was (as always) to catch up with friends and colleagues from across North America. A huge advantage of the CSBS over against SBL is its intimacy. I would like to thank all those involved with organizing the conference!

For those interested in some comments on the New Testament sessions, check out Phil Harland’s Overview of Canadian Society of Biblical Studies conference.

CSBS Tuesday Report

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The Tuesday Hebrew Bible session of the CSBS had a variety of papers loosely focused on the Writings.

The morning started off with an interesting paper by Arthur Walker-Jones from the University of Winnipeg. In his paper, “Myth Criticism of the Psalms,” he used Northrop Frye’s approach to myth to explore the individual laments.

Next was yours truly (Tyler F. Williams). I presented a paper on “The Psalm Superscriptions and the Composition of the Book of Psalms.” Focusing primarily on the Greek translation of the Psalter, I examined the additions and expansions in the LXX and found that the large majority of quantitative changes in the superscripts are the result of inner-Greek tradition history (rather than reflecting a different Hebrew Vorlage). I will post further on this paper in the near future.

The third paper of the morning was by another Edmontonian, Ehud Ben Zvi, from the University of Alberta. He looked at the Chronicler’s account of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25, focusing particularly at the claims advanced in the text itself rather than addressing any historical questions. His was a very interesting paper that explored time construction and periodization in the passage as well as many other features.

After a brief break we heard a paper by David Shepherd (currently of Briercrest College, but moving to Dublin to take up the role of principal of Dublin Bible College August 1) entitled, “‘Strike his bone and his flesh’: Reading Job 2 from the Beginning.” David presented a provocative interpretation of Job 2:5 (“his bone and his flesh”) in which he built a strong argument that rather than this statement being self-referential, it refers to Job’s wife. One challenge — among others — with this interpretation is taking נַפש×?וֹ (naphsho; translated as “his life” in the NRSV) in verse 6 as referring to his wife.

The fifth paper of the morning was presented by Derek Suderman of Emmanuel College (Toronto). His paper, “Towards an Improved Description of Biblical Prayer: Form-Critical Approaches to Direct Address in Psalm 55,” focused specifically on the shift in address in the psalm (rather than thematic changes).

The last (but by no means least) paper of this year’s Hebrew Bible sessions was by John Van Seters, now residing in Waterloo, ON. His paper, “The Myth of the ‘Final Form’ of the Biblical Text,” was perhaps the most provocative paper read this year. A preview of his forthcoming Eisenbrauns’ book, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism, Van Seters attempted to dismantle the notion of “editor” in ancient texts as well as the idea that there was ever a “final form” of any biblical text. While Van Seters had a number of good points about some anachronistic concepts that have crept into biblical studies, I have to admit that ultimately I was not persuaded by his paper. To be fair, I’ll have to take a look at his book to get his full argument.

CSBS Monday Report

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There was another excellent Hebrew Bible session Monday morning. I had the honor of hearing papers from two former students (Ken Ristau and Tim Goltz) who are both in doctoral programs (Ken at Penn State and Tim at McGill). Here are some highlights:

Tim Goltz (a doctoral student at McGill University) presented a paper entitled “Two Rhetorical Methods for Two Historical Audiences: Reading and Hearing Texts in Ancient Israel” in which he provided an excellent survey of rhetorical approaches to the Hebrew Bible. He organized them in two general approaches: rhetoric as the art of composition (aka the “Muilenberg” school with Lundbom, Trible, and Sternberg) and rhetoric as the art of persuasion (Patrick, Scult, and Duke).

Ken Ristau (a doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University) presented a compelling paper on the Chronicler’s Josiah called “Of Prophets and Monarchs: The Death of Josiah in Chronicles.” Ken argued that the presentation of Josiah in Chronicles lacks the typical joy and blessing that one would expect in Chronicles and that his death is presented ironically. Furthermore, while Josiah’s reforms are presented as the consummation of the Davidic promise, his death marks its end. (Perhaps Ken will provide a more detailed summary on his blog?)

There were a couple of rather entertaining papers in the morning that shared a similar intertextual method. Christine Mitchell (St. Andrew’s College, Sask) linked Haggai and Saskatoon in her paper “Temperance, Temples and Colonies: Reading the Book of Haggai in Saskatoon” while James Linville (University of Lethbridge) went down the rabbit hole and explored “Bugs Through the Looking Glass: The Infestation of Meaning in Joel.” Christine’s paper drew some interesting parallels between the founding of Saskatoon as a temperance colony and Persian period Yehud — particularly how they both were “charter groups” supported by outsiders (in Toronto and Persia, respectively).

Rounding out the morning were papers by Robert Culley (McGill University) and R. Glenn Wooden (Acadia Divinity College). Culley’s presentation on the individual laments (“Reading the Complaints of the Individual”) drew from his lifetime of studying the psalms. After discussing his take on genre (which focuses more on Gunkel’s form rather than Sitz im Leben) and traditional language in the psalms, he worked through a number of laments (Psalms 3, 7, 88, and 22). He summed up his paper emphasizing the importance of considering both the generic elements of the psalms (the group) as well as the unique features of any given psalm (the individual). Glen’s paper, “Daniel against the wise-men: the nuanced use of wisdom terms in Daniel 1-2,” argued, among other things, that the term ‏משׂכלים (mskylym) as used in Daniel separates Daniel and his friends from the other wise men.

All in all there were some interesting sessions on Monday.

CSBS Sunday Report

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The first day of meetings of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies were held on Sunday. Here are some highlights.

Hebrew Bible Session Highlights
The papers in this first session were excellent, IMHO. Here are my thoughts on select papers:

Keith Bodner (who is leaving Tyndale University College and heading out east this summer to join the faculty of Atlantic Baptist University) presented a witty and engaging paper entitled, “The Fellowship of the King: Some Remarks on a Formative Interaction.” I couldn’t think of a better way to start the day! Keith always gives entertaining and informative papers. Based on a close rereading of 1 Samuel 9, Keith highlighted the narrative conflict between Prophet and King (Samuel and Saul) in this early passage — a conflict that would characterize Saul’s turbulent reign. One of the points that I appreciated was his characterization of the girls’ speech in 1 Sam 9:11-13 as confused language (following Rendsburg’s article, “Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” JHS 2:6 [1999]). In addition, Keith argued that Saul’s inability to follow the girls’ instructions (in that he didn’t just go up and find the seer, but he asked where the seer’s house was even though the girls told him he was visiting) foreshadows his inability to follow directions. Marie-France Dion from Concordia University read a paper on the same passage entitled “Who was Samuel to Saul.” In contrast to Keith’s literary approach, Dion presented a source-critical analysis of the passage, arguing that 9:1-2a, 13a, 15-16, 17b, 20-21, 27b; 10:5b-6, 8-9, 10b-13 are secondary additions to the ur-text.

Gary N. Knoppers , from Pennsylvania State University, read a paper entitled, “‘Give Me that Old-time Religion’: The Revival of Israelite Religion in Postexilic Samaria.” While Gary didn’t break out into song, he did highlight the multi-vocal nature of the passage describing the end of the northern kingdom of Israel in 2 Kings 17. On the one hand, this passage presents the cultis of the remaining and imported inhabitants of the northern kingdom positively, when after being punished by Yahweh with the lion attacks (v. 25), they are instructed in “old-time (northern) religion” by a repatriated priest so that the lion attacks stop (vv. 26-28). Thus, the very sins that condemn the original northerners, saves the new settlers! On the other hand, the passage goes on in the rest of the chapter to criticize the same people for their abandonment of Yahweh as if they were the original covenant people (but they — or at least the majority of them — are not). Gary takes these differing perspectives to suggest that the DtrH is not the product of a monolithic school, but preserves diverse perspectives on the northern kingdom. Thus this passage is not quite the anti-Samaritan polemic that many scholars think it is.

The last paper in the morning session was from my good friend (hmm… I also consider Gary to be a good friend) Mark Boda of McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton. He presented on “Freeing the Burden of Prophecy:‏מַשָּׂא(massa’) and the Legitimacy of Prophecy in Zechariah 9-14.” In this paper Mark debunked the notion that the Hebrew term ‏מַשָּׂא (massa’) is best understood as “burden” since it doesn’t only introduce negative prophecies. The term is also not a genre tag that introduces an exposition of a previously communicated expression of the divine will as Richard Weis suggests in his 1986 Claremont dissertation. In contrast, Mark demonstrated that the term can introduce and type of prophetic oracle and its use in Zechariah 9:1, 12:1 and Malachi 1:1 represents a renewal of prophecy in response to Jeremiah’s earlier prohibition in Jer 23:33-40.

Knoppers’ 1 Chronicles Commentary Honoured
At the annual banquet Sunday night Dr. Gary Knoppers won the R.B.Y. Scott Book Award for his Anchor Bible Commentary on 1 Chronicles. This award is for an outstanding book in the area of Hebrew Bible or Ancient Near Eastern studies by a member of the CSBS. I couldn’t think of a better book or person to receive this prestigious award. Well done, Gary!

I highly recommend Gary’s commentary on 1 Chronicles: