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    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
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    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit

    By Walter Brueggemann

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    About this ebook

    In this thoroughly revised edition of a classic in spirituality, Walter Brueggemann guides the reader into a thoughtful and moving encounter with the Psalms. This new edition includes a revised text, new notes, and new bibliography.

    "The movement and meeting of God with us is indeed a speech-event in which new humanness is evoked among us. Being attentive to language means cultivating the candid imagination to bring our own experience to the Psalms and permitting it to be disciplined by the speech of the Psalms. And, conversely, it means letting the Psalms address us and having that language reshape our sensitivities and fill our minds with new pictures and images that may redirect our lives."
    --from Chapter 3
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCascade Books
    Release dateMay 1, 2007
    ISBN9781621893363
    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
    Author

    Walter Brueggemann

    Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, he is the author of dozens of books, including Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out, and Truth and Hope: Essays for a Perilous Age.

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    • 5/5
      Powerful book on prayer thru psalms. Thanks for this awesome insight
    • 3/5
      I very much wanted to love this book, but I found it to be more suggestive than well-argued. It reads more like an outline for a longer work. Brueggemann introduces ideas and points to places in scripture, but he doesn't present a compelling hermeneutic of the psalms. His main argument is that we need to pray the psalms with the rawness and openness with which they were written. He encourages readers not to skip, redact, or allegorize the psalms to make them more palatable. I wish he had spent more time discussing his idea of freeing our language to pray as the psalm poets prayed. Even more, I think his ideas about Christians in "Jewish" territory need much more clarification. He is aware of the pitfalls that making an argument like this are, but he never addresses them fully, or at least to my satisfaction. Overall, I'm glad I read this book, but it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.
    • 4/5
      Wow. Not to be read quickly, but prayerfully.
    • 3/5
      A somewhat coherent collection of essays by Brueggemann on the Psalms and particularly how they can be used as prayers in a Christian context.The five chapters of the book set forth the general theme: the Psalter and experience (both in coming to the Psalter and allowing the Psalter's experience be a guide), the nature of the language of the Psalms, the language as used in its place and time, the Psalms as Jewish, and a discussion of the nature of vengeance as expressed in some Psalms.There's much to appreciate and as much to doubt and question in this work. Brueggemann appreciates the Psalms for what they are and as they are and thus has an important exhortation to Christians to make sure they understand the Psalms both in their context and in their rawness. Christians must first grapple with a more concrete understanding of the Psalms before freely spiritualizing them. He accurately contrasts the modern use of language in its rather sterile, just-the-facts-ma'am way of approaching speech with the more evocative and hyperbolic expression of the Psalms, and does well in illustrating how we would do well to broaden our horizons and allow the Psalms to speak through us and in us unto hope. He rebukes any movement to "domesticate" the Psalms, to accept only what is consistent with "bourgeoisie" equilibrium and otherwise leave out the moments of lament and all that is raw, visceral, and uncomfortable in the Psalms. Our faith should be challenged by the Psalms to be more robust, true to life as lived in this reality, and raw, as opposed to attempting to force the Psalms to fit our often nice, neat, domesticated faith. His discussion of vengeance in the Psalms is compelling; he is probably right that the only way forward with the appeals for vengeance, etc., is through them, not around them, so that we can work through those impulses for vengeance that we all have to get to where we should be in giving it over to God and to get to the point where we can seek their good and not their harm.Yet there remains much that is questionable. While it is wise to understand the Psalms in their original Israelite/Jewish context(s), we cannot become Jews nor as Jews nor would it be wise to do so. He thinks it unwise to have a robust Christological emphasis in the Psalms as well as to proselytize among the Israelites, two premises quite impossible to reconcile with the theology of the New Testament. Much of what Brueggemann has to say has value, but it would not be wise to read him uncritically. Nevertheless it is good to consider what he has to say about Psalms if one is engaged in any study of Psalms in any decent depth.

      1 person found this helpful

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    Praying the Psalms, Second Edition - Walter Brueggemann

    Preface to the First Edition

    Psalm study among the scholars has been on something of a plateau for some time. The dominant positions of Hermann Gunkel on form-critical matters and Sigmund Mowinckel on cultic context are still in place. There has been little scholarly movement beyond their brilliant proposals that would link scholarly work to the life of the Psalms in the Church.

    But more recently there have been important contri­butions in developing the connections between scholarship and Church. Among the most important of these are Bernhard Anderson, Out of the Depths (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974) and Claus Westermann, The Psalms: Structure, Content and Message (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1980). More popularly, see also Thomas H. Troeger, Rage! Reflect, Rejoice! (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977). And there is more to come out of the fertile suggestions of Rainer Albertz and Erhard Gerstenberger, whose works await translation.

    The present book does not attempt to go over the consen­sus of scholarship again. Rather than repeat so much material covered in many handbooks, here the work of Gunkel and Mowinckel is assumed. Nor do we need to review the exten­sive secondary material derived from that consensus. This book attempts to address only two specific issues which hopefully will aid in reading the Psalms both more knowingly and more passionately.

    The first issue concerns the function of language in the use of the Psalms. It is clear that conventional exegesis will not make contact with the compelling power of the poetry of the Psalms. And that failure about language in large part is the cause of the gap between the scholarly consensus and the vast array of devotional materials. I have not spent time here on the foundations of linguistic function to which I appeal. I have tried to show how the Psalms might be liber­ated for more poignant and faithful use if we will grant the language of the Psalms the imaginative and free play for which it must have been intended. I claim no expertise on linguistic theory. But it will be evident that I have found the work of Paul Ricoeur most helpful and stimulating. A more comprehensive statement of my presuppositions and my utilization of Ricoeur is given in Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 17 (1980) 3–32.

    The second issue considered is the Christian use of poetry which is obviously Jewish. It is clear that the next efforts in Christian theology must concern interaction with Jewish faith. Undoubtedly Jewish faith is problematic for Christians. Concerning the Psalms, Christians (in practice if not in theory) deal with the Jewish awkwardness either by cun­ning selectivity or by knowing spiritualization. Either way, such use misses the point. It is of course hazardous for a Christian to make a statement about the Jewishness in these texts. I have taken a risk about that and perhaps have not done it rightly. But I hope my statement, if it is enough on target, may contribute to the urgent interface of Christian worship and Jewish faith. And even if not right, I hope it is clear that I have acted in good faith.

    On both the questions of the liberation of language and Jewish awkwardness, very much is at stake for the Church. I hope to contribute to the vitality of the Church’s faith by pointing to the subversive and powerful resources available in the Psalms. It is an unreformed Church which uses the Psalms for a domesticated spirituality. It is not an accident that the Reformers of the sixteenth century attended to the Psalms in intensive ways. On both questions taken up, I have reference to the one from whom no secret can be hid. On the one hand, I have urged that language here is not only for candor but for the articulation of that which is known both by God and by human persons only when articulated. That is, everything depends on the articulation, for such speech evokes something quite new for both parties in the conversa­tion. That no secret can be hidden depends on such risky articulation.

    On the other hand, I have argued that such candor is no empty, neutral form but has a distinctively Jewish shape—the shape of active, protesting suffering; the shape of defiant, resilient hope. The stuff of Jewish suffering and Jewish hope is a unique partner to the form of strident, subversive, intense forms of language. That is, this bold form of speech peculiarly matches the Jewish practice of suffering and hope. It is the interplay of the stuff of Jewish faith and the form of Psalmic speech that might matter to the spirituality of the Church.

    I should say a word about how this little book came to be. It is as spotty and selective as it is because it was originally a series of separately printed papers. They were written at the behest of Mary Perkins Ryan, who has had them published in Professional Approaches for Christian Educators (PACE) by Saint Mary’s Press. The pieces were not intended to be comprehen­sive or complete; they are only suggestions along the way in reading and praying the Psalms. I have intended that these suggestions should be not only exegetical but hermeneutical as well. Mary Perkins Ryan has been a strong and supportive editor, and I am delighted to express my thanks to her. If these papers do not quite amount to a well-argued book, their original intent and purpose must be kept in mind.

    We have determined to include in this publication a copy of the Psalms so that they are immediately available for ready reference as the book is read and studied. We felt the con­venience and additional value for the reader definitely war­ranted the additional cost factor. We have decided to use the Revised Standard Version simply because it probably has the widest usage among readers of the book.

    The dedication is to Lila Bonner Miller, M.D. She com­bines in her life and psychotherapeutic practice all the abrasive candor of liberated faith and all the certitude of unflinching trust that belongs to this tradition. She was formed in the Psalms in the practice of the Associate Re­formed Presbyterian Church. Not only has she remained in that nurture—she has practiced the Psalms in bold ways, with both her spirit and her mind (1 Corinthians 14:15). That is a great gift to many persons, including this son-in-law.

    Walter Brueggemann

    Eden Seminary

    Rosh Hashanah (1980 C.E.)

    Preface to the Second Edition

    I am delighted that K. C. Hanson has taken an initiative to publish a second, somewhat changed, edition of my book, Praying the Psalms. Indeed Hanson has not only taken an initiative, but has done the hard work of updating the bibliography and notes for the book, as well as doing careful editing and updating the text of the book itself.

    Since the publication of the first edition of the book, I have been constantly involved in the study of and reflection upon the Psalms. Out of my work on the Psalms I have published several volumes: The Message of the Psalms (a commentary of selected Psalms), Psalms and the Life of Faith (a collection of selected journal articles including my signature essay on a suggested typology of function), Abiding Astonishment (a study of the so-called historical Psalms), and The Spirituality of the Psalms (yet another reuse of my essay on typology of function). I am in the final stages of a more complete commentary on the book of Psalms with William Bellinger that will be published in due course by Cambridge University Press.

    In the period since the publication of the first edition of the book, a great deal has happened in Old Testament studies. Most specifically, the pretensions of objective scholarship have given way to a more candid involvement of the interpreter in the interpretive project. While this has been a hard-won and long-term development in scholarship, the work of Brevard S. Childs is perhaps the epitome of a shifted perspective wherein interpreters are more free and more responsible to read the biblical text "as

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