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The nine essays in this volume originated in the discussions of the Psalms programme unit of the Society of Biblical Literature and a number were first presented as papers at the SBL meetings in 1989 and 1990. The volume documents the growing interest among scholars in understanding the book of Psalms not only as a collection of liturgical materials from ancient Israel and Judah but also as a coherent literary whole. Part I considers the nature and significance of this new approach; it contains essays by J.L. Mays, Roland E. Murphy, Walter Brueggemann, Gerald H. Wilson and David M. Howard, Jr. Part II illustrates the application of this approach and offers preliminary conclusions concerning the shape of the Psalter and its component books; it contains essays by Gerald H. Wilson, Patrick D. Miller, Jr, J. Clinton McCann, Jr. and David M. Howard, Jr.

The nine essays in this volume originated in the discussions of the Psalms programme unit of the Society of Biblical Literature and a number were first presented as papers at the SBL meetings in 1989 and 1990.

[...]the psalmist is realistic enough to allow for such realities. Migliore summarizes what is at stake in understanding creation as God's artistic play: \"Creation fittingly expresses the true character of God, who is love\" (p. 85). Because God delights in, rejoices in, and loves the world, so do we.

When I attended my first Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Annual Meeting in November of 1987 after having begun seminary teaching earlier that fall, there was no Book of Psalms program unit. Here are his words from his volume's \"Implications for Further Work\": Reading individual psalms via their Sitz im Leben, though useful, speculates on one historical slice of the Psalms and fails to grasp its role in the larger programmatic message as we have shown. [...]I would date the end of the dominance of form criticism not to Wilson's 1985 work, but rather to the 1968 SBL presidential address by James Muilenburg, \"Form Criticism and Beyond,\" in which he suggested that form criticism, while it could remain useful, \"has outrun its course. Spieckermann wants interpreters to attend to the \"individuality of every single psalm,\" and this is precisely what Muilenburg and Alonso Schökel were advocating.9 As Muilenburg put it, \"What I am interested in, above all, is understanding the nature of Hebrew literary composition, in exhibiting the structural patterns that are employed for the fashioning of a literary unit, whether in poetry or prose, and in discerning the many and various devices by which the predications are formulated and ordered into a unified whole.

The Bible offers a unified portrayal of a God who is essentially gracious, merciful, and loving. The discernment of the Bible's “single plot”—the hermeneutics of grace—has profound social and ethical implications.

I am going to keep it simple and use two words to describe my perception of the impact of Gerald Wilson’sThe Editing of the Hebrew Psalter—shock and awe. if this response seems a bit over the top, let me explain. Everything is contextual, of course, and my context is this: I am a teacher in a small, church-related school in a staid Midwestern suburb. Things are pretty routine— some might say “boring”—so it does not take much to create an atmosphere of excitement. In fact, one of the most exciting things i do every year is to

[...]prayed ethics\" (p. 58) meant that worshipers would have adopted the psalmists' first-person voice as their own, an act of self-involvement that would have encouraged adoption also of the perspectives and values of the psalms (which often bespeak God's perspectives and values). [...]the Psalter would have functioned as Torah, \"instruction,\" a function reinforced by the shape of the Psalter.

McBride raises this focal question based on his conclusion that the Book of Deuteronomy represented \"a new literary genre\" (p. 25) in the ancient Near East-namely, \"the charter for a constitutional theocracy\" (p. 27) aimed at establishing \"egalitarian justice\" (p. 28; see Deut 10:17-19) by the implementation of \"the social policies that the covenant community is sworn to protect, above all the sanctity of life and the worth of individual personhood\" (p. 31).

Ministers and Bible study leaders (along with some scholars and most seminary students) will appreciate Goldingay's helpful and faithful theological reflections in the \"Theological Implications\" section that concludes his treatment of each psalm. Here, Goldingay addresses crucial issues such as the functions of expressions of vengeance in the Psalms, the relationship between sin and suffering, the \"vocation ... to work for the completing of God's creation project instead of its frustration by the spoiling of God's world\" (p. 161 ), and an array of other matters related to worship and spirituality.