A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms.

I always look out for good books on the Psalms and McCann's volume is one of the more interesting that has come my way. A professor at Eden Theological Seminary, he combines scholarly expertise in the Old Testament with the concerns of a pastor and expertise as a Christian theologian. The precise focus of his approach to the psalms is that they reflect Torah, by which he means instruction and not law, as the term is too often and too narrowly defined. Drawing on the classical studies of Gunkel and Mowinckel, McCann accepts the results of form criticism and the insistence that the psalms had a cultic function, but he is more interested in the final shape of the psalter as a whole (the psalter's integrity in its final canonical shape is a given for McCann) and, further, the theological world view reflected in the psalter.

McCann says at the beginning of his study that one should read his book with an open Bible (which is exactly the way I read it). His individual chapters (which focus on a single psalm and cognate examples from other psalms) move dialectically; e.g., he presents a chapter on "Instruction for Praise" and, conversely, "Praise as Instruction," etc. His final chapter is on the psalter and Jesus Christ. This is not a Christological reading of the psalter (McCann is too sophisticated an exegete for that), but an excursus on the way(s) in which the psalter shapes the picture of Jesus in the New Testament and, also, the warrant for the Christian use of the Hebrew psalter. An appendix deals with the singing of the psalter in the church with a nice list of aids for the encouragement of such a practice.

McCann chairs the Psalms group of the Society of Biblical Literature and his expertise shows through in his intelligent commentary. There is a Scripture index at the end of the volume but no topical index. I have two minor criticisms of the book. First, it would have been useful to have had a bibliography (I culled one from the footnotes). Second, at places, McCann the exegete gives way to McCann the preacher. In the midst of careful readings of the text, we sometimes are handed homilies that editorialize on current affairs. The space would have been better spent on more reflections on the psalms since the author does that so well. Apart from those niggling critiques, I would place this book fight next to Walter Brueggemann's The Message of the Psalms (Augsburg, 1984) since both volumes combine exegetical sophistication with pastoral sensitivity. Both authors do full justice to the psalter as a product of God's revelation to the Jews while showing how we as Christians share in that revelation. They give an extremely sensitive and nuanced approach to the old monastic dictum semper in ore psalmus; semper in corde Christus (Keep a psalm always on the tongue; keep Christ always in the heart).

Stookey's interesting volume is a survey of eucharistic teaching in the Protestant tradition with special attention given to those communities which, like the Methodists, still celebrate the "Lord's Supper" with some regularity. His intention is twofold: to help Protestants appreciate the rich fullness of euchanstic doctrine and to suggest ways in which the Eucharist may be better celebrated in church.