Einleitung in die Psalmen

Introduction

Gunkel, Hermann. Einleitung in Die Psalmen: Die Gattungen Der Religiösen Lyrik Israels. Handkommentar Zum Alten Testament, Abt. 2, Suppl. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1933.

Gunkel, Hermann. An Introduction to the Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel. Translated by James D. Nogalski. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998.

Herman Gunkel "was unable to complete his final work on the Psalms. The severe suffering of the final months of his life forced him to hand over his incomplete manuscript, at Christmastime 1931, to his pupil Joachim Begrich. Gunkel died on 11 March 1932. Begrich put the final touches on the organization of Gunkel's last work on Psalms, and it was published in 1933 as Einleitung in die Psalmen: die Gattungen der religiosen Lyric Israels.

Sixty-five years after its original publication (1998), the book was translated into English by James Nogalski.

Herman Gunkel 1862-1932

Form Criticism

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Summary

Outline

1. The Genres of the Psalms
2. Hymns
3. Songs about YHWH's Enthronement
4. Communal Complaint Songs
5. Royal Psalms
6. Individual Complaint Songs
7. Individual Thanksgiving Songs
8. Smaller Genres
9. Prophetic Elements in the Psalms
10. Wisdom Poetry in the Psalms
11. Mixtures, Antiphonal Poems, and Liturgies
12. The History of Psalmody
13. The Collection of Psalms
14. The Superscriptions of the Psalms

Key Concepts

Genre (Gattung)

Genre is a way to classify works of literature. A genre refers to "a group of texts similar in their mood, content, structure or phraseology." A genre might be compared to a tree, with the individual literary works belonging to the genre like branches growing out of the tree.

"Genre research in the Psalms is nonnegotiable, not something one can execute or ignore according to preference. Rather, it is the foundational work without which there can be no certainty in the remainder. It is the firm ground from which everything else must ascend" (5).

"Gunkel's demonstration that a Psalm is to be understood only as a branch on a tree... rooted in a soil"

The genres of the psalms must be distinguished according to

• a common setting in life (Sitz im Leben)
• common thoughts and moods
• common literary forms (Formensprache).

Setting in Life (Sitz im Leben)

If a genre is a tree and the literary works that belong to that genre are branches growing out of the tree, then the Sitz im Leben is the soil in which the tree is rooted and from which it has grown. Sitz im Leben refers to "the circumstances (often in the life of a community) in which a particular story, saying, etc., was either created or preserved and transmitted." For Gunkel, this is the most important consideration for determining genre, especially when it comes to ancient texts.

"The genres of an ancient writing must be differentiated by the various events of life from which they developed" (7).

For Gunkel, the original Sitz im Leben for many of the Psalms is Israel's worship services and the following four events in particular:

• The sacrificial celebration
• The communal lamentation (over some calamity)
• The act of confession
• The thanksgiving offering

While not all of the psalms had their setting in life in Israel's worship service, the oldest psalms did, and later non-liturgical psalms developed out of these earlier liturgical psalms. The worship service is thus the soil of out which Israel's psalmody grew.

Literary Forms (Formensprache)

In addition to the life-setting of a psalm, the linguistic and literary forms of a psalm are also important for determining the psalm's genre.

"Without this form investigation, genre research in the area of Old Testament is impossible... It provides extraordinarily clear signals of the genre" (16).

• Syntactical forms
• Preferred vocabulary

For example, the "hymn" normally begins with "the call to rejoice and sing using a plural imperative, such as hallelu" (23).

Key Arguments

[Genre]: The genres of the psalms must be differentiated by their various uses in the Israelite worship service.
 + <Life-setting>: "The genres of an ancient writing must be differentiated by the various events of life from which they developed" (7), and the original life setting of the Psalms was the Israelite worship service.
  + [Ancient genres]:"The genres of an ancient writing must be differentiated by the various events of life from which they developed" (7).
  + [Life-Setting]: The original life setting (*Sitz im Leben*) of the Psalms was the Israelite worship service.
   + <Formal nature>: The psalms speak generally, using fixed linguistic forms. The best explanation for this is that they have their original setting in the worship service.
    + <Babylonian psalms>: "The Babylonian poems demonstrate the same formality" and these "belong with certain worship celebrations" (7).
   + <Allusions in pss>: "Even in the psalms, we find an abundance of clues to their worship service setting" (13).
    + [E.g., Ps. 66:13]: "I will enter your house with whole burnt offerings; I will fulfill my vows to you."
    + [E.g., Ps. 68:25]: "See the procession of YHWH, your procession into the sanctuary, my god, my king. The singers in front, the string players behind, the women beating drums in the middle."

Key Evidence

• Biblical poetry
  • allusions to liturgical activity
  • literary/linguistic forms
  • (psalm superscriptions disregarded as late)

• ANE poetry
  • Mesopotamian
  • Egyptian

Genres

Gunkel categorizes most of the psalms into four main genres:

1. Hymn (תְּהִלָּה)
2. Communal Complaint Song
3. Individual Complaint Song (תְּפִלָּה)
4. Individual Thanksgiving Song (תּוֹדָה)

1. Hymns

Psalms 8; 19; 29; 33; 65; 67; 68; 96; 98; 100; 103; 104; 105; 111; 113; 114; 117; 135; 136; 145; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150; also Zion songs: 46; 48; 76; 84; 87; 122; also Enthronement songs: 47; 93; 97; 99; also Thanksgiving songs of Israel: 124; 129

• Forms: "a rich treasury of forms, but at the same time a great strictness of form. All of the deviations constantly revolve around just a few basic forms" (40).
  • Introductory summons to praise
    • plural volitives (e.g., "praise YHWH!")
  • Main part (content/basis of praise),
    • introduced with "for" (כִּי), apposition, relative particle, or participle
    • "short sentences that state something particularly praiseworthy about God" (33).
  • Conclusion

• Setting: Israel's festivals and sacrificial celebrations

• Thoughts/Mood: "YHWH's own characteristics and deeds" (49) / "enthusiasm, adoration, reverence, praise, and exaltation" (47)

2. Communal Complaint Songs

Psalms 44; 58; 74; 79; 80; 83; 106; 125

• Forms
  • Summons to YHWH
    • vocative
    • 1st person plural speaker throughout
  • Complaint
  • Petition
  • "all types of thoughts... in which one... speaks before YHWH in order that he will hear and intervene" (88).

• Setting: the fast (צוֹם), "a great communal complaint festival which the community tended to hold now and then in response to general calamities" (82).

• Thoughts/Mood: turning to YHWH, confession of sin, seeking compassion / distress, lamentation, supplication

3. Individual Complaint Songs

Psalms 3; 5; 6; 7; 13; 17; 22; 25; 26; 27:7-14; 28; 31; 35; 38; 39; 43; 51; 54; 55; 56; 57; 59; 61; 63; 64; 69; 70; 71; 86; 88; 102; 109; 120; 130; 140; 141; 142; 143; also Songs of Confidence: Pss 4; 11; 16; 23; 27:1-6; 62; 131

"The individual complaint songs form the basic material of the Psalter" (122).

• Forms: "The flow of the genre is presented here in its simplest form" (177).
  • Summons to YHWH
    • vocative
  • Complaint
    • narrative (perfect verbs)
    • portrayal (imperfect verbs, nominal sentences)
  • Petition/Wish, "the heart of the genre" (158-9).
    • imperatives/jussives
  • "Rationale for divine intervention" (170)
    • prepositional phrase
    • introduced with "for" (כִּי)

• Setting: "belongs originally to certain worship activities" (123), especially "the act of confession" (19), though many are detached from any liturgical setting

• Thoughts/Mood: distress, danger, fear, sickness, enemies, confidence in YHWH, innocence, penitence

4. Individual Thanksgiving Songs

Psalms 18; 30; 32; 34; 40:2-12; 41; 66; 92; (100); (107); 116; 118; 138

• Forms
  • Introduction
    • mention of YHWH
    • "thanks/praise"
  • Personal narrative
    • report of distress
    • summons to YHWH
    • deliverance
  • Confession to YHWH
    • addressed to others
  • "Announcement of the thanksgiving sacrifice" (206)

• Setting: the thanksgiving offering

• Thoughts/Moods: "joyful thanksgiving to the gracious helper on high from a deeply moved heart which has endured the fear of death" (212-213).

Other classifications

Royal Psalms

Psalms 2; 18; 20; 21; 45; 72; 101; 110; 132; 144:1-11; 89:47-52

"Royal psalms are... not really a self-contained 'genre' like the other categories... Rather, royal songs are comprised of a whole series of genres" (103).

• Setting: "performed at some type of court festivity... in the presence of the king" (101) (e.g., enthronement festival, royal wedding).

• Thoughts/Mood: "concerned entirely with kings" (99); "praises of the prince's majesty...; prayers of the king and intercession for the king; royal oracles; ... presentations of his righteousness and piety" (109) / an "effusive tone" (114).

Smaller Genres

Only traces of the following genres can be detected in the Psalter.

• Sayings of Blessing & Curse (e.g., Psalm 1:1-3)
• The Pilgrimage Song (Psalm 122)
• The Thanksgiving Song of Israel (Psalms 66:8-12; 67; 124; 129
• Legends (a component of Psalms 78; 105; 106)
• Wisdom poetry (Psalms 1; 37; 49; 73; 91; 112; 128)

Mixed Genres

Many of the psalms are of mixed genres. "Once the genre becomes separated from the soil of the cult... the genre will gradually fall apart" (306).

For example, in Psalm 119, "almost all of the lyric genres are represented" (310).

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Impact

"The question of genre in the 20th century initiated the modern study of Psalms. Hermann Gunkel's work at the turn of the century, particularly his delineation of literary types of psalms, continues to influence how scholars interpret these texts."

Important ideas

• The foundational importance of genre for psalms research
• The importance of Sitz im Leben for genre classification
• The original liturgical setting of the psalms
• The identification of literary/linguistic forms as signals of genre
• Genre classifications
  • Hymns
  • Communal Complaint Songs
  • Individual Complaint Songs
  • Individual Thanksgiving Songs
  • Royal Psalms

Critique

Nogalski 1998

"Many of the genre categories delineated here have stood the test of time. However, like any work, this volume also contains dated material that must be evaluated critically. For example, Gunkel's presuppositions about the development of Israelite religion have not fared as well as his delineation of genre categories, but these presuppositions greatly affect his argumentation for dating genre developments and individual psalms. Like many in his time, Gunkel presumes Israelite religion began as a primitive religion, climaxed in the works of the great prophets, and then degenerated into a legalistic religion overly influenced by the law. Needless to say, this paradigm can no longer be deemed adequate."

Bellinger 2014

"While Gunkel charted new territories in the study of the Psalms, he was also a man of his time. He often interpreted the eloquent language of the psalms in terms of a dead ritualism or from an eschatological perspective. He viewed the psalms in the canonical Psalter often as later spiritual imitations of the forms or types of psalms. It was thus the psalm types rather than the individual texts in the Psalter that derived from the Jerusalem cult. His views of the institutional settings of the Psalms have often been debated, but his work on the literary types opened new avenues of study and interpretation and initiated the modern study of the Psalms. His understanding of genre includes both literary features and social settings, and his categories reflect that understanding. Most studies of the Psalms in the twentieth century begin with a classification of the Psalms according to type. Such genre analysis continues to be a vibrant part of Psalms scholarship."

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