Rereading
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Book Review: ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd: Psalm 23 for the Life of the Church’ by Richard S. Briggs
Richard S. Briggs, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Psalm 23 for the Life of the Church, Touchstone Texts, Baker Academic, 2001. At the outset of this review, I am pleased to say that this is an engaging and delightfully readable book. Like all good guides Briggs ensures his company know precisely where they are at… Continue reading
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Y is for Yerushalayim
Despite Psalm 51’s focus on personal repentance, the city of peace, Yerushalayim features towards the psalm’s conclusion: Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. Psalm 51:18–19, NRSV… Continue reading
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B is for Bones
Psalm 51 is one of seven psalms that have been grouped together and known as the penitential psalms since the sixth century. These seven psalms frequently touch on what today is often judged to be an unsavoury and unwelcome idea—the notion that God not only exhibits anger but shows his divine displeasure as wrath. In… Continue reading
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Malcolm Guite’s ‘David’s Crown’: A Review
Malcolm Guite, David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms, Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2021 Malcolm Guite conceived and wrote this book during the earliest months of the pandemic. There is an irony in this origin, for corona, a word that had eluded most of us until a year ago, can refer to a crown or coronet of poems.… Continue reading
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A Glimpse into Ian Stackhouse’s “Praying Psalms: A Personal Journey through the Psalter”
Ian Stackhouse, Praying Psalms: A Personal Journey through the Psalter, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018 This brief post is not really a review, more of a preview, of this book. I know Ian, and I find it difficult to be certain of impartiality regarding a book written by someone I count as a friend. There… Continue reading
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O is for Old Testament
A few posts ago the term Hebrew Bible was explored with a view to appreciating why the label is more than just an alternative to the Christian term of ‘Old Testament’. In this post the idea that the existence of the Old Testament can be understood as a re-reading of the Hebrew Bible is considered.… Continue reading
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Psalmtweets 21-30
The third of the new psalmtweets posts. These tweets are part of a set of 150 which aim to define the Psalter with a contribution from each psalm. Psalm 21: The Psalms often speak of the King. These words have taken on new significance in Christ. Psalm 22: The Psalms show how desperate need should… Continue reading
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An Exploration of the Spirituality of Gustavo Gutiérrez Part 3
In this 3rd post we examine the first of the four themes of the spirituality of Gustavo Gutiérrez that we identified in the 2nd post. Is Gutiérrez’s Biblical Interpretation Legitimate? As Vanhoozer reminds us: ‘Perhaps no twentieth-century philosophers have done more on behalf of hermeneutics than Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur’.[1] Both are inextricably linked to… Continue reading
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An Exploration of the Spirituality of Gustavo Gutiérrez Part 2
In this second post we identify and explore 4 key principles of Gutiérrez’s spirituality. Principle One: The Use of Key Biblical Texts as Paradigmatic for Socio-Political Liberation Escobar’s observation is surely correct, although somewhat polemical: ‘the Vatican II Council brought to Roman Catholicism the novelty of placing Scripture back at the heart of the theological… Continue reading
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Musing on Hermeneutics and Biblical Interpretation
Over the next few weeks I will be posting a short article each week on hermeneutics, or biblical interpretation. My interest in the Psalms is part of a broader interest in hermeneutics, so it is not a radical departure from what has gone before. But why a focus on hermeneutics? There are so many issues… Continue reading
About Me
This blog’s central aim is to explore all aspects of how the Psalter (the biblical psalms) functions as Scripture today.
To this end it will also include book reviews on the Book of Psalms and related topics.
Some posts will reflect more broadly on biblical interpretation or hermeneutics.
If you like what you see here and want to arrange for me to give a lecture, run a teaching event or a short retreat based around The Psalms then contact me so we can discuss how this might work.
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