The Book of Psalms (BA3450T)

Content

In this unit, students will engage with the Book of Psalms, through exegesis of selected texts in English translation and scholarship on its composition, and historical contexts. Themes such as ecology, divine absence, ageing, poverty, justice and wisdom will be examined in light of the pedagogy, poetics and canonical formation of the Psalter.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

BA1000T Introduction to the Old Testament or equivalent

Pedagogy

Lectures, guided readings, flipped classroom

Indicative Bibliography

• Brenner, Athalya, and Carole R Fontaine (eds). Wisdom and Psalms. The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 2nd Ser., No. 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.
• Brown, W.P. Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002.
• Brown, W.P. (ed). The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Brueggemann, W. and W.H. Bellinger. Psalms. NCBC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• DeClaissé-Walford, Nancy L., R.A. Jacobson and B. Laneel Tanner. The Book of Psalms. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014.
• Gillingham, Susan (ed). Jewish and Christian Approaches to the Psalms : Conflict and Convergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Jacobson, Rolf A. (ed.) Soundings in the Theology of Psalms. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.
• Johnson, Vivian L. David in Distress: His Portrait Through the Historical Psalms. LHBOTS 505. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009.
• Wenham, Gordon J. Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012.

Assessment