<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: overall, a good critical introduction to the psalms
Review: Gerstenberger's commentary on the psalms, in keeping with the intentions of the FOTL series, seems to have three main purposes: 1) to highlight, by actually working through the psalms, the importance of understanding the genre of each psalm for interpretio (i.e. "form criticism"). 2) to attempt to discover the historical context/setting ("Sitz in Leben") in which the psalms were (a) created and (b) used within the worshiping community. 3) to comment briefly on the authorial intent of the psalm, in light of the above conclusions. Strengths: 1) Gerstenberger is familiar with a great deal of secondary literature, and his conclusions regarding genre (in sifting through the opinions of lots of scholars) were indeed (as promised) quite helpful for intepretation. Also, his brief summaries of the authorial intent of the passage aided theological reflection (other resources should be used though- see below). 2) In each psalm, Gerstenberger does a good job highlighting parallel phrases in other psalms, Job, and the rest of the Old Testament (this is typically how he comes to his conclusions regarding the historical context of the psalms). This can be of great help in interpretation, if you are willing to put in some grunt work. 3) The bibliographies alone are probably worth the price of the book, especially for the scholar (or wanna-be scholars such as myself) knowing German. Some criticisms/limititations: 1) Some of his conclusions regarding the historical context of the psalm seem forced- this would seem to be more from the nature of the material than anything else, though. 2) The series deliberately set out to study the forms of old testament literature (genre), and so is intended to be used in conjunction with other resources. Gerstenberger focuses very little on either the theology of the psalms (typically, only as is necessary to discover genre) or on how they apply to Christians (or were applied in the New Testament). The 3 volume commentary on the psalms (Word Biblical Commentary series) by Craigie, Marvin Tate, and Leslie Allen would be a good primary set to use along with Gerstenberger- John Calvin's commentary would also be a good choice. 3) Gerstenberger is not exactly a conservative scholar- and his liberal leanings at times lead him to conclusions that I would be uncomfortable taking. For example, he links Psalm 19 to numerous hymns toward the (mainly) Egyptian god "El," and says that the psalm is an adaptation of this kind of hymn. However, though this conclusion may be true, the psalm is clearly NOT worshiping the sun any longer, and is directed to the God who created the sun. Gerstenberger, though, seems to downplay this canonical shaping (if that is what it is), and says that "only thorugh the accretion of vv. 8-15 did the psalm become a Yahweh hymn." Meaning, if the last half of the psalm was missing, it would be an "El" hymn again?? All in all though, this is a helpful commentary that should be used discerningly, and with other aids.
<< 1 >>
| 
