Essays on the Composition and Reception of the Psalms

Susan Gillingham does not need any special introduction and it goes without saying that a Festschrift awarded to her does not only honour her as a person but also her relevant and fundamental work within Psalms studies. Gillingham received the Doctor of Divinity (DD) from the University of Oxford in 2015 – the second woman ever to receive such an award. The two editors of the volume offer an appreciation of her merits right at the beginning in the preface and then briefly introduce into what is going to follow. The twelve contributions of this collection of essays are divided into three programmatic major parts: a first one is on the origin of the Psalms (five articles; ‘Imagining Ancient Origins of the Psalms’), a second on their theological imaginations (four; ‘The Psalms and Theological Imagination’), and a third on their reception in literature, music and visual arts (three; ‘Reimaging the Psalms in Literature, Music and Visual Arts’), in other words into a historical, a theological and a reception part. Such an organization of the book indirectly parallels some of the major focuses of Gillingham’s intense engagement with individual psalms and the Book of Psalms as an entity. All in all, the book consists of studies that deal with the Psalter as a whole, while others are focussing on individual psalms (e.g., on Psalms 2, 60, 72 and 127 in part one, 19 and 72 again in part two, and 23 and 39 in part three). Each contribution ends with a full bibliography of the titles referred to. Very helpful are the fifteen illustrations or figures, which either present black-and-white photographs of manuscripts and books, of pieces of art, or illustrate the structure, the geographical location and the chiastic structure of a psalm. The book comes with indices of references and authors which facilitate navigation. The length of the individual studies varies considerably and the quality of the contributions will certainly be assessed differently by readers with individual reading expectations. For example, as a reviewer, I benefited most from the contributions by Deborah W. Rooke (‘Handel-ing the Psalms: Reception-Historical Reflection on Handel’s Chandos Anthems’) and Natasha O’Hear (‘Visualizing Psalm 23: Pastoral Idylls, Protectors and Shadows of Death’), two creative and innovative approaches to the reception, use and interpretation of certain psalms. All in all, this collective volume offers some interesting insights into areas of research similar to that of Susan Gillingham.