Psalms – The Divine Journey
Collected Essays 1988-2026
By (author) Mark S. Smith
Hardback (Published)
(September 2026)
ISBN: 9783162003690
6.1 x 9.13 inches
Price: $194.00
In stock
Mark S. Smith maps four decades of Psalms research, foregrounding cultural contexts, pilgrimage motifs, and embodied emotion. He explores genre-bending poetics and argues for the Psalter as a carefully composed whole, shaped by its Levitical compilers and structured like an opera in five movements.
Research on the Psalms has shifted dramatically over the past forty years. In charting these changes, Mark S. Smith highlights the changing landscape of interpretation. Part One contains studies of specific psalms in light of these developments. Part Two addresses a relatively new topic in biblical studies, namely the human body and emotions expressed in and through the body; this includes the Hebrew word commonly translated “soul” (as in “bless the Lord, O my soul!”). Part Three probes specific cultural backgrounds to the Psalms: their Canaanite religious and literary heritage; their Temple setting; and their expression of social identity as a people. Most notably, pilgrimage and its constellation of practices inform many psalms (such as Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd”). Pilgrimage also plays a role in the larger shaping of the Psalter. No less important are the Psalms’ literary properties, particularly their “genre-bending” and their brilliant imagery, metaphor and sound-play as well as their use of prose particles. Finally, Part Four addresses the Psalter as a whole. This part of the book pays considerable attention to theories about the Psalter, with a focus on its Levitical compilers and their vision of the Psalter as a textual whole, laid out like an opera in five movements.
Introduction
Part I. Studies of Specific Psalms
1. Psalm 1: Sonant Particles and Parallelism, with Speculation on the Poem's Scribal Production
2. Psalm 8:2b-3: New Proposals for Old Problems
3. Setting and Rhetoric in Psalm 23
4. Psalms 42-43: Dual Self, Dual Genre
5. God and Zion: Form and Meaning in Psalm 48
6. The Invocation of Dead Ancestors in Ps 49:12c
7. The Structure of Psalm LXXXVII
8. Primary and Secondary Religion in Psalms 91 and 139: A Response to Dr. Andreas Wagner
9. How To Write a Poem: The Case of Psalm 151A in 11QPsa 28:3-12
Part II. Psalms and the Body
10. 'Seeing God' in the Psalms: The Background to the Beatific Vision in the Hebrew Bible
11. The Heart and Innards in Israelite Emotional Expressions: Notes from Anthropology and Psychobiology
12. Some Biblical Soul Talk in the Psalms: The Reflexive Self (nepeš)
Part III. Psalter Backgrounds
13. Canaanite Backgrounds to the Psalms
14. Like Deities, Like Temples (Like People)
15. 'People' between Liturgical Experience and Political Imagination: Preliminary Observations on *'ām in the Psalms
Part IV. The Psalter: In the End
16. The Theology of the Redaction of the Psalter: Some Observations
17. The Levitical Compilation of the Psalter
18. Taking Inspiration: Authorship, Revelation, and the Book of Psalms
19. The Psalms as a Book for Pilgrims
Born 1955; 1985 PhD from Yale University; Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Skirball Professor Emeritus of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, New York University.
- By (author) Mark S. Smith
Other Titles in this Series
Tod und Jenseits im alten Israel und in seiner Umwelt
Theologische, religionsgeschichtliche, archäologische und ikonographische Aspekte
Recht, Ethos und Heiligkeit
Eine rechtsanthropologische und rechtstheoretische Studie zum Heiligkeitsgesetz (Lev 17-26)
Schriftgelehrtes Murren
Schriftgelehrte Fortschreibungs- und Auslegungsprozesse in den Murrerzahlungen in Exodus und Numeri
Volume 152
Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten Testament
Mit einer Bibliographie 1969-1991 zum Opfer in der Bibel
Der leidende Gottesknecht
Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte mit einer Bibliographie zu Jesaja 53
Erzahldiskurs und Redepragmatik im Alten Testament
Unterwegs zu einer performativen Theologie der Bibel
Volume 46
The Origins of P
Literary Profiles and Strata of the Priestly Texts in Genesis 1 - Exodus 40
Volume 164
The Post-Priestly Pentateuch
New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles
Volume 101
Die Ägyptenworte im Ezechielbuch
Eine literarhistorische und religionsgeschichtliche Analyse von Ez 29–32
Trugende Prophetenworte
Zum Umgang mit falscher und unerfullter Prophetie im Alten Testament im Kontext altorientalischer und antiker Divination
Volume 165
Gottes himmlische Wohnstatt
Transformationen im Verhaltnis von Gott und Himmel in tempeltheologischen Entwurfen des Alten Testaments in der Exilszeit
Volume 119
Schriftgelehrte Traditionsliteratur
Fallstudien zur innerbiblischen Schriftauslegung im Alten Testament
Volume 77
Die JHWH-Religion und die Vorstellung göttlicher Gesetzgebung
Überschneidungen zwischen der Rechtsentwicklung und der Sphäre der Religion in der Geschichte des antiken Israel und Juda
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