Category Archives: Bible

The Book of Psalms for Beginners

Posted on by

Stephen Cook over at Biblische Ausbildung has posted on “books that provide ‘accessible interpretation’ of the psalms.” He notes four books in particular, two commentaries and two introductions by two authors:

  • Mays, James Luther. Psalms. Interpretation. W/JK, 1994. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • McCann, J. Clinton. Psalms. New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 4: 1 & 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms. Abingdon, 1996. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Mays, James Luther. Preaching and Teaching the Psalms. W/JK, 2006. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • McCann, J. Clinton. A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms. Abingdon, 1993. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com

These recommendations are excellent. McCann’s works are definitely accessible and chock full of valuable insights on the psalms that takes into consideration the latest of scholarly approaches to the psalms. Mays is a veteran psalms scholar and always has insightful comments and interpretations. The only criticism I have of Mays’s commentary is that it is too brief.

That being said, I would like to add a number of a number of other works to Steve’s recommendations. In regards to accessible commentaries on the book of Psalms from a Christian perspective I would include the following:

  • Broyles, Craig C. Psalms. New International Biblical Commentary: Old Testament. Hendrickson, 1999. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Davidson, Robert. The Vitality of Worship: A Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Eerdmans, 1998. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Goldingay, John. Psalms, Volume 1: 1-41 . Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms. Baker Academic, 2006. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Wilson, Gerald H. Psalms Volume 1. The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan, 2002. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com

In terms of a one volume commentary on the psalms that is historically and theologically sensitive, I really like Davidson. I would also recommend Broyles. I have been nothing but impressed with Goldingay’s commentary. It is accessible, yet scholarly; theologically deep, yet practical. I highly recommend his first volume and look forward to the others. The commentary by the late Gerald Wilson is also an excellent commentary that is both accessible and theologically rich.

In terms of introductions to the book of Psalms, I would also recommend the following:

  • W. H. Bellinger. Psalms: Reading and Studying the Book of Praises. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1990. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Nancy L. Declaisse-Walford. Introduction To The Psalms: A Song From Ancient Israel. Chalice Press, 2004. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
  • Denise Dombkowski Hopkins. Journey through the Psalms. Chalice Press, 2002. Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com

Bellinger’s work is an excellent (and brief) introduction to the book of Psalms that focuses on form-critical interpretation, while Declaisse-Walford’s is another good introduction that covers all the bases of psalm interpretation, especially the more recent interest in the shape and shaping of the book of Psalms.

Hopkins’s work is perhaps the most accessible of any that have been mentioned by either Stephen or myself. It is a Brueggemann-esque introduction that is personally engaging and spiritually sensitive. The book is filled with numerous illustrations of visual art, poetry, and personal stories, as well as many practical group exercises.

For a comprehensive ranking of commentaries on the Psalms, see my Old Testament Commentary Survey.

Any other suggestions?


Cool New Audio Biblioblog

Posted on by

Tim Bulkeley, of SansBlogue and Hypertext Bible Commentary fame (or is that infamy?) has once again moved to the cutting edge and started an audio blog called “5 Minute Bible.”

He’s started a series on the book of Jonah. So far he’s posted an introductory podcast on Jonah 1:1 as well as one on the importance of genre — which actually deals more with Amos 4:4-5 (rather brilliantly, I might add).

I strongly encourage you to check it out — it’s really pretty cool. The podcasts are informative and witty — and Tim’s New Zealand accent alone is worth the five minutes!

And if you like the book of Jonah… check out my (incomplete) blog commentary here.


A Thought for Good Friday

Posted on by

I am always struck by the reality that the one thing we are called to emulate as followers of Christ is Christ’s self-sacrifice. May God grant us the grace and courage to have the same mindset as our Lord and Saviour who “because he was in very nature God… humbled himself, becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross.”

2Have the same mindset
Have the same love
Be “soul-joined�
Have one mindset.

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,
But in humility regard one another as more important than oneself.

4Do not merely look out for your own interests,
But also look out for the interests of others.

5Your mindset should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6Who, because he was in very nature God,
Did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped,
7But emptied himself,
Taking the very nature of a slave,
Coming to be in the likeness of human beings.
8And, being found in appearance as a human being,
He humbled himself
Becoming obedient to death –
Even death on a cross!

9Therefore also,
God highly exalted him,
And granted him the name
That is above every name

10That
At the name belonging to Jesus
“Every knee should bow,�
of those who are in heaven
and on earth
and under the earth

11And that “every tongue should confess�
That Jesus Christ is Lord
To the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:2-11).

In verse 6, Paul is not saying that although Jesus was in nature God, he took the form of a slave; rather he is saying that it is precisely BECAUSE Jesus was in very nature God, that he did what he did. Jesus’ humble self-giving, self-sacrificing love towards humanity defines the very essence of God. As as followers of Christ, it should also define who we are.


Preaching the Old Testament

Posted on by

Ray Pritchard has an interesting post over at CrossWalk.com entitled, “Why Don’t Pastors Preach From the Old Testament?” While most of the churches I have attended have done some preaching from the Old Testament (especially when I am preaching!), I would probably agree that the Old Testament gets preached a lot less than the New Testament.

Pritchard provides six reasons why he thinks this is the case. Here are his six points with my comments in brackets following them:

  1. Many pastors feel more comfortable with Greek than with Hebrew. [I’m sad to say that I think many pastors are most comfortable with English and rarely delve into the biblical languages — though feel free to correct me!]
  2. Most biblical training focuses on New Testament interpretation. [Sad but true]
  3. For some there may be theological reasons why they don’t preach from the Old Testament. Perhaps they view everything before Matthew as “preparation” (which in a sense it is) and therefore not worthy of extended attention from the pulpit (a sad mistake, in my opinion). [I would agree that this is a sad — and costly — mistake.]
  4. But my primary thought was that most seminaries specialize in teaching pastors how to preach the epistles. Our methods work best with Romans, Ephesians and the other Pauline epistles. We feel more comfortable with material that is presented logically and in a point-by-point fashion. Therefore our graduates gravitate more to Colossians than to Hosea. [Perhaps; at the very least most pastors seem to prefer to preach non-narrative and non-poetic passages, which pretty much eliminates the Old Testament! It’s hard — and unnatural — to reduce a narrative to a three-point sermon.]
  5. The flip side is that we aren’t so comfortable with the prophets–major or minor. Or with Job. What do you do with Job? Do you preach four or five sermons and move on? Ecclesiastes is a challenge. So is Song of Solomon in a different sense. Then you’ve got books like Leviticus, which most of us never touch. Or Deuteronomy, where we cherry-pick a passage here and there. [I think this is a valid point in that it is more difficult to preach some passages. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should avoid them. The fact of the matter is that while many pastors may think that the NT is more accessible, that is likely an illusion created by familiarity.]
  6. And how should we preach the great stories of the Bible? I personally have profited greatly from preaching through the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Samson, Elijah, the book of Daniel, and David’s early years. But I confess that preaching biblical narratives challenges and stretches the way many of us were taught in seminary. [I think that sometimes we take too much of an anthropological focus in our preaching. Rather than preaching on the lives of the characters in the Old Testament, it is far more profitable to preach on the God that interacts with them and showers them with his grace.]

As I often say (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) most Christians are practical Marcionites in that while they don’t reject the Old Testament, they tend to ignore it.

What is your experience? Does your church preach a lot from the OT? Do you think they should?


A Comparative Psalter: MT, LXX, and English Translations

Posted on by

[I announced this back in June 2006; it is just now available]

An interesting resource for the study of the Septuagint has just been published by Oxford University Press:

A Comparative Psalter: Hebrew (Masoretic Text) – Revised Standard Version Bible – The New English Translation of the Septuagint – Greek (Septuagint)
John Kohlenberger (ed)
Oxford, March 2007.

Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com

Here’s the blurb from Oxford: This volume brings together the Psalms in a quartet of versions that is certain to be an invaluable resource for students of this core book of the Bible. The texts featured in A Comparative Psalter represent a progression of the text through time. The ancient Masoretic Hebrew and Revised Standard Version Bible are displayed on one page, while the New English Translation of the Septuagint (by Pietersma) and Greek Septuagint are on the facing page. The same set of verses is displayed for all four texts, making it easy to compare to differences between the MT and LXX. The Modern English versions included in this volume are noteworthy for their fidelity to the ancient texts. The first major translation of the Christian Scriptures from the original languages to be undertaken since the King James Version, the RSV debuted in 1952 to critical acclaim. It dramatically shaped the course of English Bible translation work in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, and remains the Bible of choice for many people. Meanwhile, the New English Translation of the Septuagint is the first work of its kind in a century and a half. This major project brings to the fore a wealth of textual discoveries that help illuminate the Book of Psalms for Twenty-first Century readers.