The Psalms and the Life of Faith

by Brueggemann, Walter; Miller, Patrick D.

• ISBN13: 9780800627331
• ISBN10: 0800627334
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-01
• Publisher: Fortress Pr

Summary

Walter Brueggemann's unique gift of joining historical-exegetical insights to penetrating observations about the traumas and joys of contemporary life?both personal and social?is here forcefully displayed. Everyone who is familiar with his work knows the power of his speech about "doxological, polemical, political, subversive, evangelical faith: and about the ways such faith is enacted in the praise of ancient Israel and in the church.Readers of this book will find fresh insight into:the Psalms as prayer and praisethe categories of the Psalmsthe social context in which psalms were prayed and sungthe theology of the Psalmsthe dialogical character of the Psalmsjustice and injustice in the Psalmsthe study and "use" of the Psalms by the churchpraise as an act of basic trust and abandonmentthe impossible wonders of God's activity that overturn conventional ways of

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	xi
Patrick D. Miller
Part One The Psalms as Prayer and Praise
Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function	3	(30)
The Psalms as Prayer	33	(34)
From Hurt to Joy, from Death to Life	67	(17)
The Formfulness of Grief	84	(14)
The Costly Loss of Lament	98	(14)
Praise and the Psalms: A Politics of Glad Abandonment	112	(23)
Part Two Covenant and Canon as Context
Prayer as an Act of Daring Dance: Four Biblical Examples	135	(15)
Covenanting as Human Vocation: The Relation of the Bible and Pastoral Care	150	(17)
``Impossibility'' and Epistemology in the Faith Tradition of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:1-15)	167	(22)
Bounded by Obedience and Praise: The Psalms as Canon	189	(28)
Part Three Interpreted Psalms
Psalms 9--10: A Counter to Conventional Social Reality	217	(18)
Psalm 37: Conflict of Interpretation	235	(23)
Psalm 77: The Turn from Self to God	258	(10)
Psalm 109: Steadfast Love as Social Solidarity	268	(15)
Credits	283	(2)
Scripture Index	285