Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period

Description

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. Acknowledgements Table of contents Introduction Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period Part 1: Psalms, Prayers, and Embodied Religion Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case The Imprecatory Features of Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12 Toward a Genealogy of the Introspective Self in Second Temple Judaism The Function of Prayers of Ritual Mourning in the Second Temple Period Part 2: Psalms, Prayers, and Penitential Themes “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean”: Psalm 51, Penitential Piety, and Cultic Language in Axial Age Thinking Prayer and Remembrance in 4QSapiential Work (4Q185) Lamentations: Time and Setting Part 3: Material Issues and the Ordering of Psalms and Prayers in Collections Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization: An Analysis of Scribal Features in a Selection of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions Did David Lay Down His Crown? Reframing Issues of Deliberate Juxtaposition and Interpretive Contexts in the “Book” of Psalms with Psalm 147 as a Case in Point Part 4: Psalms, Prayers, and Prophecy Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns Part 5: Psalms, Prayers, History and Identity Those Who Pray Together Stay Together: The Role of Late Psalms in Creating Identity Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfilment Fathers and Sons: Family Ties in the Historical Psalms Part 6: The Composition and Use of Psalms and Prayers Speakers and Scenarios: Imagining the First Temple in Second Temple Psalms (Psalms 122 and 137) Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres “There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3 Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century Bibliography Index of Ancient Sources Index of Modern Authors