Review in: Theology Today 2004 61: 130
Review door: Walter
BrueggemannGevonden op: http://ttj.sagepub.com/content/61/1/130.full.pdf+html
The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological
Commentary.
By Samuel
TerrienGrand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2003. 971 pp. $95.00.
Samuel
Terrien (1911-2002) completed this weighty study of the Psalter in his most senior years, during which, it is
clear, he lost nothing of his scholarly acumen or his capacity for bold and
vigorous articulation. His characteristic qualities of astonishing erudition
and elegance of expression are fully displayed in this commentary, which
provides a standard consideration of each psalm plus venturesome suggestions on
some themes that have long preoccupied the author.
The
book opens with a learned and comprehensive introduction, including a note on
Psalm 151 from Qumran. The format for each psalm, in turn, includes a fresh
translation, an exhaustive bibliography, and a discussion of form, followed by an
extended “commentary” with a conclusion concerning “date and theology.” Two
features in this commentary merit special notice. First, Terrien has read and
used everything published in the field. His capacity to digest and activate a
rich, extensive bibliography is longstanding and continues here. Of particular
interest is his frequent appeal to French scholars, who are often neglected in a
field dominated by German- and English-speakmg authors. Thus, he cites with
ready familiarity Auffret, Bonnard, Martin-Achard, Dhorme, and the entire
galaxy of French scholarship, an offering not much available in the usual studies.
Second,
Terrien’s signature mark in psalm study is his attention to strophic structure,
an interest indicated in this book’s subtitle. While his approach to strophic
structure has not been generally followed, the heuristic value of his sense of
internal poetic coherence and structure is enormous. While the commentary on every
psalm is arranged in strophes, his analysis of Psalm 22, which he outlines in an
elaborate poetic pattern, and his acute analysis of structure in Psalms 74,
104, and 139 may be considered representative examples.
Of
course, the payoff of this, like every good commentary, is the author’s fresh
insight into the details of the text. I single out, among a number of psalms,
Terrien’s discussion of Psalm 73, which he links to “Jeremianic circles.” Here,
among other matters, he asserts: “The man who is nearest to God upon this earth
receives a foretaste of eternal felicity.”
In reflection upon verses 25-26, Terrien comments: “The summum mysteriosum [height
of mystery] is here reached by man’s attempt to express the ineffable.” And he
concludes: “Theology is born out of the quest for truth and its doubts. It
matures into creedal statement after the sublimity of divine possession.” The
commentary is permeated with such original articulations that invite the reader
into rich, new awareness. The reader senses on every page that here speaks a
scholar deeply rooted in faith with a powerful mystical tinge. In The
Elusive Presence (1978), Terrien paid focused attention to the
contemplative and the artistic. In his life’s work on the Book of Job, he moved
deeply into issues of absence and presence. All of that rich learning is
mobilized here in most probing and suggestive ways, malung connections all the
way from deep mysticism to the ordered life and faith of the church.
It is
a special privilege to comment on this book, as Professor Terrien was my first
teacher of the Psalms. In his graduate seminar at Union Theological Seminary
(New York), he worked with strophic structure in ways that bewildered and
dazzled-always attentive to detail, always playfully and open to dialogue,
always holding acute criticism close to evident faith. All of that elegance
appears here, to our great benefit.
WALTER BRUEGGEMANN
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, GA
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