273 - Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today

Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today
By Bernhard W. Anderson
Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1974. 198 pp. $3.50.

Books designed for use in adult group studies are not usually the kind that draw the reader along with a desire to follow through to the very end of the book. This one is an exception in every way! It is fascinating; the language style is economical and to the point; and the conclusions are significant and contemporary, both for the lay reader and for the serious student.

There are many things to commend in this book. The bibliography lists not only titles but also the kind of simple annotations that entice the reader to move into further work in the Psalms. The glossary is wonderfully skillful, and I personally discovered fresh definitions of many words that I have been using in preaching-teaching moments. The footnotes are bunched together at the close of the book, which is a hindrance, but they are themselves very enlightening. Two appendices

274 - Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today

list the Psalms with a suggested title for each, as well as the Psalms discussed within the study.

The main body of the book consists of seven chapters, two of which introduce the Psalter as a literary form and consider authorship questions with an excellent survey of environmental influences upon the Psalms of Israel. The remaining chapters sketch the author's commentary upon selected Psalms in terms of five theme categories. An epilogue makes suggestions for the use of the Psalms in Christian worship.

But I have a question to raise. Anderson confronts us on p. 18 with the following:

This brings us to an important point. The main question to ask about any psalm is not the situation in the life of David or in the life of some unknown individual which occasioned the composition. Nor is it essential to try to discover the historical situation in the life of the people Israel in which the psalm was composed, for with the exception of Psalm 137, which clearly presupposes life in Babylonian exile, there are very few historical hints for dating individual psalms. Rather the important question is the purpose of the psalm, and usually this question leads to an inquiry into the psalm's situation in worship.

I find these words oppressive and much too slavish as a context for interpretation. Fortunately, Anderson himself breaks out of the smallish form-critical circle that he has so tightly drawn for himself. His own commentary, just one chapter later, and throughout the study, moves beyond an interpretation of the songs of Israel as if their use in the cultus or the temple were the most important clue to their interpretation. Nevertheless, we must face up to the thesis of page 18.I cannot agree with such a heavy handed form-critical assumption. What precisely grants real and existential meaning to songs, prayers, laments, or even royal wedding liturgies, is not in the hymnbook classification category or the use of the songs by court musicians, but because somehow out of the people's real lives, "out of the depths," came the cry for help and the hallelujah. George Gershwin was commissioned to write a symphonic composition for a special Paul Whiteman performance in New York City, but it would be foolish to find in that performance-occasion the interpretative clue to the Rhapsody in Blue. The meaning of that musical testament is found in the convergence of personal, musical, and situational influences within the life of Gershwin himself.

There is no escape from the whole historical and personal soul of the Psalms in the depths of the people themselves. It is harder work to discern these roots than to trace and understand the use of the Psalms as they may be classified "according to literary type or genre." Bernhard Anderson tells us, "In recent decades the approach to the Psalms in terms of their function and setting in worship has led to an exciting rediscovery of their meaning" (p. 18). He has not convinced me that such technical fascination with the literary forms of old Israel

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is so exciting. The soul of the Psalms is discovered at a more fundamental and basic level. The critical tool in interpretation is important, but in my view must be secondary to the historical-theological tool.

Earl Palmer
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
Berkeley, California