Psalms 1 and 2 serve as a Prologue to the rest of the Psalter. Susan Gillingham takes us on an illuminating journey across two-and-a-half millennia, revealing how these two psalms have been commented on, translated, painted, set to music, employed in worship, and adapted in literature, often being used disputatiously by Jews and Christians alike.

Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two provides the first ever extensive commentary on the Jewish and Christian reception history of the first two books of the Psalter (Psalms 1-41 and 42-72). It explores the various uses of the Psalms, over two millennia, in translation and commentary, liturgy and prayer, study and preaching, musical composition and artistic illustration, poetic and dramatic imitation, and contemporary discourse. With lavish illustrations, using examples from both music and art, Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two offers a detailed commentary on each psalm, with an extensive bibliography, a large glossary of terms, and helpful indices. It is an ideal resource both for students and scholars in the academy and for lay people and ministers in church and synagogue. Psalms Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley Blackwell Commentary series. Further information about this innovative reception history series is available at www.bbibcomm.info

This third volume completes the set of a groundbreaking reception history of the Psalter, the culmination of two decades' work In Volume Threeof Psalms Through the Centuries: A Reception History Commentary on Psalms 73-151, the internationally recognized biblical scholar Professor Susan Gillingham examines the Jewish and Christian cultural and reception history of Books Three to Five of the Psalter. She examines the changing ways in which psalms have been understood in translations and commentaries, liturgy and prayer, study and preaching, music and art, poetic and dramatic performance, and political and ethical discourse. Lavishly illustrated with thirty colour plates, several black and white images and a number of musical scores, this volume also includes a comprehensive glossary of terms for readers less familiar with the subject and a full, selective bibliography complete with footnote references for each psalm. Numerous links to website resources also allow readers to pursue topics at greater depth, and three clearly organized indices facilitate searches by specific psalms or authors, or types of reception for selected psalms. This structure makes the commentary easy to use, whether for private study, teaching or preaching. The book also offers: A one-of-a-kind treatment of the reception history of the psalms that starts where most commentaries end— beginning with the trajectory of the Psalter’s multi-faceted reception over two millennia Specific discussions of both Jewish and Christian responses to individual psalms Psalms Through the Centuries: A Reception History Commentary on Psalms 73-151, like the previous two volumes, will earn a distinctive place in the libraries of faculties, colleges, seminaries, and religious communities as well as in private collections of students and scholars of biblical studies, theology, and religion.

Worship is a dominant theme in the Old Testament. It is spoken about not only to provide words for worship, guidance about its leadership, or to express censure for its inadequacies, but also to depict places for worship and their significance, and to speak of the high calling of those who had particular roles and responsibilities in worship. Worship for the Old Testament authors has a vital place in the covenantal relationship between the Lord and his people. Michael Thompson considers Israel's worship under a series of themes and aspects--the place of worship (holy places, temples, and homes); the various people at worship (the people, priests and Levites, and kings); the liturgy of worship (prayers, psalms, sacrifices, feasts, festivals, and calendars); and visions of worship (in the proclamations of prophets, wisdom writers, theologians, and Israelite priests). These and many other matters relating to worship in the Hebrew Bible are presented in this fresh and wide-ranging study.

The contributors provide fresh insight into the context surrounding the composition and reception of the Psalms, the relationships between the Psalms, and of early audiences who engaged with the material. Close attention is also paid to specific interpretative problems which emerge in the Psalms, both linguistic and theological. Consequently, there is the creation of a more sophisticated historical reconstruction of how the Psalms were used originally and in subsequent periods, opening up challenges and possibilities for scholars through emphasizing the need in critical Psalms scholarship for vitality and imagination.

This is a general-interest introduction to the Old Testament from many disciplines. There are 23 essays with 23 individual reference lists.

English Irena Backus' scholarship has been characterised by profound historical learning and philological acumen, extraordinary mastery of a wide range of languages, and broad-ranging interests. From the history of historiography to the story of Biblical exegesis and the reception of the Church Fathers, her research on the long sixteenth century stands as a point of reference for both historians of ideas and church historians alike. She also explored late medieval theology before turning her attention to the interplay of religion and philosophy in the seventeenth century, the focus of her late research. This volume assembles contributions from 35 international specialists that reflect the breadth of her interests and both illustrate and extend her path-breaking legacy as a scholar, teacher and colleague. Français La recherche d’Irena Backus témoigne d’une culture historique et philologique étendue, de son impeccable maîtrise des instruments linguistiques et de la multiplicité de ses centres d’intérêt. Ses études sont aujourd’hui une référence essentielle pour les spécialistes de l’histoire intellectuelle, de l’histoire de l’exégèse biblique et de la réception des Pères de l’Eglise pendant le long XVIe siècle. Seiziémiste de formation, elle s’est également aventurée dans d’autres chronologies, en s’intéressant à l’Église de la fin du moyen âge et à la philosophie de ce XVIIe siècle qui l’a de plus en plus passionnée et qui constitue aujourd’hui son centre d’intérêt majeur. Ce recueil célèbre son long et original enseignement et ses grandes qualités de chercheuses et de collègue.

When thinking about psalms and prayers in the Second Temple period, the Masoretic Psalter and its reception is often given priority because of modern academic or theological interests. This emphasis tends to skew our understanding of the corpus we call psalms and prayers and often dampens or mutes the lived context within which these texts were composed and used. This volume is comprised of a collection of articles that explore the diverse settings in which psalms and prayers were used and circulated in the late Second Temple period. The book includes essays by experts in the Hebrew bible, the Dead Sea scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the New Testament, in which a wide variety of topics, approaches, and methods both old and new are utilized to explore the many functions of psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period. Included in this volume are essays examining how psalms were read as prophecy, as history, as liturgy, and as literature. A variety methodologies are employed, and include the use of cognitive sciences and poetics, linguistic theory, psychology, redaction criticism, and literary theory.

Three hundred years after his death, Matthew Henry (1662–1714) remains arguably the best known expositor of the Bible in English, due largely to his massive six-volume Exposition of the Old and New Testaments. However, Henry's famous commentary is by no means the only expression of his engagement with the Scriptures. His many sermons and works on Christian piety - including the still popular Method for Prayer - are saturated with his peculiarly practical approach to the Bible. To mark the tercentenary of Henry's death, Matthew A. Collins and Paul Middleton have brought together notable historians, theologians, and biblical scholars to celebrate his life and legacy. Representing the first serious examination of Henry's body of work and approach to the Bible, Matthew Henry: The Bible, Prayer, and Piety opens a scholarly conversation about the place of Matthew Henry in the eighteenth-century nonconformist movement, his contribution to the interpretation of the Bible, and his continued legacy in evangelical piety.

Reclaim the Psalms for true worship, as well as prayer, as you learn how to approach God with the emotional intensity of the ancient psalmists. Denise Dombkowski Hopkins combines the insights of scholarship on the Psalms with artwork, liturgy, song, and poetry, to give us a new way to use the Psalms in our life of faith together, to empower our corporate identity and revitalize our worship. She examines how the Psalms formed the worship of ancient synagogues and the earliest churches and how they can do the same for our churches today. Reflective questions bring worship leaders and individuals alike to a new awareness of the power of the Psalms to enrich public worship and private devotions with an honesty that does not turn away from the realities of suffering and anger.