Abstract
Invitation to the Psalms: A Reader’s Guide for Discovery and Engagement
Rolf A. Jacobson and Karl N. Jacobson
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013. 184 pp. $17.99
Rolf and Karl Jacobson have collaborated on several projects, including Crazy Talk (2008) and Crazy Book (2009), “not-so-stuffy dictionaries” of theological and biblical terms, respectively. As with the Crazy series, the Jacobson brothers have made critical scholarship remarkably accessible in their Invitation to the Psalms, reframing academese into easily digestible discourse. Exceedingly clear, but not simplistic, this introductory textbook engages the reader with a personal, even intimate, authorial voice.
In fact, their writing style reflects their goal: not to train readers to analyze the Psalms, but to invite the “the interested non-specialist student” to experience the Psalms. Their invitation is a warm and welcoming one. Indeed, the accessibility of the prose matches the content and structure of this book, with its focus on illuminating the “most accessible features” of the Psalms for those without facility in Hebrew.
In chapter 1, the authors introduce the poetry of the Psalter by investigating the parallel structures that are perceptible in English translation. The droll title (“Why is My Bible Repeating Itself?”) illustrates their approach. They adopt an expansive notion of parallelism that draws most immediately from Adele Berlin’s work, suggesting that Hebrew poetic parallelism appears at a number of levels: “within lines, between lines, between verses, between entire sections, and between psalms” (10). The authors warn against getting bogged down in identifying the different types of parallelism, calling such a project “destructive” and “limiting the imagination of the readers” (12). Echoing Robert Alter and James Kugel, the authors describe parallelism between lines of Hebrew poetry essentially as a phenomenon of echoing and extension.
Chapters 2–3 introduce the essentials of form criticism without any of the jargon associated with that approach. Through simple, but effective, visual aids, the authors begin by distinguishing between a psalm’s form and content. Chapter 2 describes genres marked by common forms and literary structures (prayers for help, hymns of praise, trust psalms, and songs of thanksgiving), while chapter 3 treats genres classified according to content (such as, royal psalms, instructional psalms, and historical psalms). In both chapters, one finds orderly presentations of the setting of each psalmic genre and its most recognizable constituent elements.
Chapter 4 explores psalmic personae. A pitch-perfect discussion about Davidic authorship (which many readers will indeed presume) shows how David came gradually to be associated with the Psalms in Christian and Jewish traditions. While the authors assign due importance to understanding the cult as the background of the Psalms, they also contend that the ambiguity of the psalmist’s identity enables the Psalter to invite generations of faithful readers to hear the psalmist’s voice as their own.
Chapter 5 describes the metaphoric language of the Psalms through the theory of “source” and “target” domains. The authors highlight the necessity of consulting other ancient texts and pictorial images to understand the Psalms’ literary imagery in its cultural context. While they do not include ancient Near Eastern iconographical evidence to illustrate this point, their brief treatment of the images of God as rock and God as warrior provide helpful examples of the ways metaphors work in the Psalms.
In the book’s final chapter, Jacobson and Jacobson identify the “loving faithfulness” (esed) of God as the Psalter’s primary theological trope (Rolf Jacobson presents a fuller version of this argument in Soundings in the Theology of the Psalms, Fortress Press, 2010). The fact that the psalmists sometimes challenge or even deny God’s faithfulness underscores the centrality and theological significance of the theme. A pastoral voice emerges in these last pages as the authors describe modern people of faith, like the ancient psalmists, “paradoxically both questioning and relying on the Lord’s fidelity” (161).
In sum, this volume delivers exactly what it promises. It even reads, at times, like an engaging workbook. A number of “fill in the blank” exercises encourage readers to create their own psalms and prayers. Multiple callout boxes illustrate important points. Provocative exercises conclude each chapter along with a handful of suggestions for further reading (these titles are, however, not unique in each chapter). As such, the volume is well suited for use in introductory classes, and especially for Bible studies and Sunday school. Pastors and religious professionals will find this work to be a general and careful, but also very lively, overview to the Psalter—a valuable resource for leading its readers into an experience of the Psalms.