The Psalms in Israel's Worship: Two Volumes in One

This book (even though not new!) is a wonderful resource for those who want to understand the Psalms as part of the Temple Cult in Jerusalem. Mowinckel is very persuasive in shedding light upon the fact that just because they were written (at times) in the first person, does not mean that they were individual, private prayers. Rather, that the king embodied the entire people in a way we can only dimly grasp. Amazing work. A must read for liturgists and scholars.

It is a sad thing that many scholars do not have ready access to the many classic texts written outside of their primary language; even with the requirement of most doctoral programmes of foreign language study, it seems increasingly few scholars develop the language skills to do research in other languages, and, if they do, it is always in one of the major languages of the discipline (in biblical studies, those major scholarly languages tend to be German or French, apart from English). Thus, when a classic text such as this appears in Norwegian, it gets perhaps less notice than it should. It is a good thing to have this text, from the middle of the twentieth century, available in English in an affordable, one-volume edition. Mowinckel was one of the primary voices proclaiming that the Psalms were used not just as poetic devices and pieces of literature in aid of and worship of God, but as actual liturgical pieces, much like hymns and recitations in church and synagogue services today. While he uses the form history/type history approach (Gattungsgeschichte) a la Gunkel, he also insists upon a cult functional approach to understanding the psalms. This is an approach that resonates with many in church or synagogue-based bible studies, as well as seminary students training for roles of ministry as pastors, priests and rabbis. Mowinckel relates the psalms to other parts of the biblical text, the prophets in particular. Psalms can be, among many forms, of praise or of lamentation - it is especially with the later that prophetic voices can be heard. Mowinckel traces the different kinds of voices heard in the Psalms, different times and different situations influencing pieces of what much later became a more unified collection. Mowinckel uses early information from the Dead Sea Scrolls (many of the psalms scrolls were among the earlier pieces to reach publication and public view; sadly, Mowinckel died some time before the majority of the scrolls were available to the public). Mowinckel traces not only the development of the voices and authorship of the psalms, but also the history of compilation and collection, and the various aspects surrounding how they were used, and the musical and technical aspects of psalms. James L. Crenshaw of Duke University provides an introduction that briefly traces the history of interpretation of the psalms, from the early church to the Enlightenment period, then through the various significant personalities involved with biblical scholarship during the nineteenth century `liberal' period forward into the twentieth century, to set the stage for the environment in which Mowinckel was writing. Part the Eerdmans' Biblical Resource Series, it is an excellent volume for scholars, useful for pastors, and likely to be of interest to anyone with a deep love and curiosity about the psalms.