Abstract for my SBL (London) paper

I just received the good news that the abstract for one of my papers has been accepted for SBL London. It'll be in the 'Writings' section. Here it is:

Psalm 24 as Prophecy: A New Poetic Reading

Psalm 24 is often seen to be a “baffling” psalm due to the juxtaposition of what seems to be thematically disparate material (creation, vv. 1-2; torah and sanctuary vv. 3-6; divine warrior and sanctuary, vv. 7-10). Most unusual, however, is the juxtaposition of the final two stanzas, for they seem to cancel each other out. In vv. 3-6, human beings desire access to God within the sanctuary, whereas in vv. 7-10 God himself is presented as standing outside the same location and desiring access. Multiple clues indicate that these two entrance scenes have been intentionally brought into parallelism with each other, yet no satisfactory answer has been presented as to the meaning of this poetic manoeuvre. In this paper, a poetic analysis is proposed that goes beyond those proffered thus far by looking at the way it represents time and space. The conclusion is that the Psalm belongs in the genre of prophecy.

Barth, Ps 24, and the unity of the Testaments

Christians believe that the Old Testament witnesses to  God-in-Jesus. Jesus himself made this clear to his disciples as he walked with them on the road to Emmaus, opening their eyes to the way the Law and the Prophets spoke of his suffering and resurrection. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, if you enjoy thinking about this kind of thing), he didn’t leave behind a divinely inspired hermeneutical key which can infallibly illuminate the manner in which the Old Testament goes about doing this. We are left with a frustrating inner conviction but the impossibility of proving this conviction to the unbeliever. This reminds me of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ demand for a sign, when he simply states that what he says is true because he is the one who says it. I can imagine how frustrating that must have been! Somehow the truth is “self-affirming.”

For my part, I do believe that the Old Testament witnesses to God-in-Jesus, and the church has consistently confessed the same (cf. the abundant allegorical interpretation for the vast majority of the church’s history, including throughout the Reformation). However, like many in the church, I also struggle to back up this claim with a philosophical or theological account of how this happens. To draw another analogy with responses to the historical Jesus, I find myself in the similar position of Jesus’ neighbours in Nazareth, who , when confronted with his claim that he is the initiator of the kingdom of God, responded with the question: “isn’t that Joseph’s son… ?” (note the title of a recent book whose contents would seem to affirm this surface recognition as the last word on the matter). The analogous Christian version that I hear again and again is: “is that the God of the New Testament?” The answer is “yes,” and if you can’t figure out why or how than you better take stock of the adequacy your own grasp of the gospel. I experience this challenge regularly.

This is not to say that there are not a host of helpful theses that each in their own way shed light on the phenomenon, allowing Christians to both deepen their own faith as well as present it to others. The recognition of mystery ought to function as an invitation to enter it, rather than as an excuse to just give up wrestling with the issue in the first place (cf. A. Louth, Discerning the Mystery).

One thesis that touches on this issue was made by Karl Barth, which I will now share in massively reduced form (primarily because I have only read this thesis in a paper about something else, namely  the influence of Barth on Miskotte). It’s about the continuity  and discontinuity between the Testaments:

Similarity	Disimilarity
Both Testaments see God as one who freely initiates relationship with human kind.	The OT has a variety of covenants and only an implicit Messianic hope. The NT has only one covenant and the Messiah is identified as Jesus of Nazareth.
Both Testaments recognize the mysterious hiddenness of God.	The OT sees this hiddenness in God’s judgement of the nations, including Israel. The NT sees this in God’s judgement of his Son. God’s judgement in the NT is, in some sense, final.
Both Testaments have an “already-not yet” eschatology (my phrase), as God is both one who is already experienced but also one who is coming.	The NT not only see’s Jesus as the One who is coming, it is waiting for the one who has already come [though I have to admit, I don’t see how this is any different from the OT perspective, for there God also already came … ].

The framework for these similarities/differences is Barth’s concept of the relationship between Divine Revelation and time. There are three “times,” the time of the expectation of revelation (Old Testmaent), the time of the fulfilment of revelation (Jesus’ history), and the age of remembering the fulfilment of revelation (New Testament). It’s important to note that the NT is not the fulfilment of the OT (contra Louth, cited above), Jesus is. The NT and OT both function to point to a single referent that stands outside of themselves. They do this in their own idiom and from their own perspective (hence the differences), but their referential object is the same (hence the similar structure and content).

As you may have noticed from my comments in square brackets, it seems to me as if Barth is not doing full justice to the OT (though feel free to correct me here). In short, he seems to overemphasises the NT’s “already” element in contrast to the OT’s “not yet.” Isn’t it the case that the OT already witnesses to a past fulfilment that provides the “ontological” ground for the possibility of the history that ensues? The example I’m thinking of is the opening strophe of Ps 24: “The earth is the LORD’s … for he has founded it upon the seas … .” Isn’t this past act as decisive in its grounding of God’s history with his people as Jesus’ resurrection from the dead? E. Otto talks of God’s acts here as  creating the “Möglichkeit” (possibility) for the obedience found in vv. 3-6: There can be such a thing as a righteous, obedient Jacob (v. 6), because God’s stabilization of the earth in the face of chaos guarantees the validity of such obedience. In a similar way, the New Testament talks of resurrection life in the Spirit creating a heart of flesh and the capacity to be obedient to the Torah.

So how do I interpret the relation of Ps 24:1-2 in relation to the NT? Jesus can’t have “fulfilled” it because Ps 24:1-2 is not pointing forward to a moment yet to be fulfilled, it is pointing back to something already established once and for all. As mentioned, the relation  seems to be of a structural nature. In fact, the analogy can be expanded to apply to Jesus’ entire mission, for just as in Ps 24 strophe 1 (vv. 1-2) is the precondition for strophe 2 (vv. 3-6), these two strophes are somehow “consummated” by strophes 3 and 4 (vv. 7-10; on my interpretation of the poetic structure, I should add). Similarly, Jesus was raised from the dead (strophe 1), has cleansed his people (strophe 2) and will return again to consummate his work (i.e. Advent; strophes 3-4). Except that even here our analogy runs into conceptual difficulties, for it is the case that  Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension are all contained in vv. 7-10: his death was a battle with death, his resurrection was his victory and his ascension was its consummation (i.e. Ascension not advent). So are vv. 7-10 about Christ’s return to earth as king or his ascension to heaven to be enthroned? In addition to this, where does this leave strophe 1 if the resurrection in is the final two strophes? The odd thing is that strophe 1 in fact has the same content as strophes 3-4, albeit on a “mythological” rather than “historical” plain! Strophe 1 is also a kind of battle, this time with the seas, and it is also a proclamation of victory, i.e. the establishment of a viable living space. So does Ps 24 taken on its own, regardless of its correlation to an external event in time (not in space: Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem!) contain its own odd witness to “ontological-unity-in-temporal-sequence”? Srophes 3 and 4 “consummate” strophe 1, even as the “recapitulate” its content. The “chronos” is different but not the “chairos.”

 The intermediate conclusion  all this mind bending has for me is that every time I try and relate Psalm 24 to the Gospels my temporal categories are consistently being confirmed (there is a genuine analogy) and subverted. It’s like a lover who tempts me with a kiss and a flash of her eye-lashes but teasingly disappears around the corner, leaving a trail of perfume to beckon me on (Song of Songs was always had a hermeneutical function for church and synagogue!).  I see the analogy, am breathless at the sheer scope of who Jesus is and what he has achieved, and yet still am left to struggle and see how the past and present within an Psalm’s “narrative world” is “fulfilled” by the Gospel’s presentation of past and present, a past and present that can be collapsed into one moment.

I mentioned above that the OT’s inevitable and consistent challenge to the Christian claim about its Christological content ought to primarily be a challenge to Christians, not to prove their faith to the sceptics but to deepen the content of their own faith, which is always far from perfect. I can’t claim to have a concrete answer to my issue with Ps 24 above (though I’m working on it!), but it has forced me to return to my own construal of the “gospel” and to see it with new eyes. Of particular relevance here is the concept of the relation between the “ontological” and “economic” Trinity, God in himself and God for us. McGlasson summarizes the relation as follows:

God’s sending of his Son for our salvation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are a replication in time of God’s eternal self-identity. God’s redemptive love for humanity is an expression of God’s free decision to draw us into a relationship with himself, which is based on the relationship of love that he himself is (McGlasson, Invitation, 198).

As Barth implies above, the NT is not the fulfilment of the OT, it points to it’s fulfilment. This means that drawing structural analogies between the OT and the NT can only take us so far. They point us in the right direction, as the content of the NT is the same as the OT. But the reality itself is greater than what is at most the partial testimony of both Testaments (cf. Childs, Biblical Theology). Hence the necessity of higher level dogmatic theology in order to grasp what is really going on in Scripture. The practice of theology, after all, originally consisted in nothing other than meditation upon the mystery of the ontological trinity. I think I ought to learn to do the same.  


[For a post on Moberly's interpretation of the Emmaus story, go here; see also my post Reading in a Revised Frame of Reference].

An Abstract of my doctoral thesis on Ps 24

The following is an abstract of my doctoral thesis on Ps 24 which Susan Gillingham has kindly offered to publish at the forthcoming Oxford Conference on the Psalms. It focusses on the exegetical dimension, leaving aside the hermeneutical and dogmatic parts of my doctorate. I'd appreciate feedback and questions (and bear in mind that the content of this blog is copyright):

My thesis is an attempt to read Ps 24 in the context of B.S. Childs' “canonical approach,” rightly understood. The first half outlines the coherence of his approach, which is not a method but a comprehensive construal of the particular nature of Israel's religious traditions that factors in the ontological reality its God. 


Turning to Ps 24, I argue that it is a poetically structured reworking of prior authoritative traditions with the goal of constraining future reception of those traditions, accomplished dialectically in the context of Israel's broader theological heritage, with the goal of witnessing to the true theological substance of that heritage. In particular, I argue that Ps 24 attempts to penetrate to the heart of God's ways in the world by drawing on Israel's core traditions of creation, Sinai/Zion, holy war, and the Davidic king and by subtly structuring their interrelations. 


The interpretive crux is the poetic juxtaposition of two portrayals of character: the obedient character of those who may access the fullness of creational life within the temple on Zion, accrued upon completion of the journey of pilgrimage, and the character of the author and guarantor of this life, the Lord, presented as a mighty warrior, about to enter into that very same location. The juxtaposition entails a subtle poetic movement of “actualization,” enacted within the protological/eschatological horizon of creation, whereby the Lord appears to accomplish what is only a possibility for Jacob. The significance of this juxtaposition, however, remains vague at the level of the Psalm alone. An account of Israel's cult along with a “theology of the Psalter” proves the paradigmatic centrality of Ps 24's themes to Biblical faith and strengthens the sense of their interconnectedness, yet it does not resolve the significance of their poetic presentation. 


A significant hermeneutical key is provided by the “canonical marker” לדוד, which asks us to read the Psalm in relation to the theological persona of David, a hermeneutical construct within the Psalter that takes its cue from the Book of Samuel. In Samuel we find that the context that constitutes David's identity mirrors the structure and content of Ps 24. On the one hand, David is an historically particular free agent who, out of love for God and Israel, acts on Israel's and his own behalf in obedience to torah in order to bring it and himself, through battle, to full creational blessing on Zion (2 Sam 6-8). On the other hand, David's story is embedded in a broader eschatological narrative in which David is a vehicle of the true agent of history, the Lord, who similarly acts in order to bring about his own purpose of divine communion with his righteous people in full creational blessing on Zion. As Ps 24 implies, God, through David, is the true subject of Israel's redemption in Zion, though not without its obedience. Given the persistent presence of disobedience, this fulfilment in time remains proleptic and the ancient cycle of Israel's struggle for life and divine judgement/redemption is perpetuated. This same dialectical pattern applies to the “David of the Psalter” whereby, on the one hand, “David” struggles for his own and Israel's life and witnesses to the Lord's intervention in judgement/salvation and, on the other hand, this cycle is situated within the ultimate context of divine reality. 


Ps 24's paradigmatic nature and hermeneutical function for Biblical faith becomes clearer when it is read as the frame and climax of the chiastically structured sub-collection of Pss 15-24. As part of the frame (Pss 15 and 19), it functions to set the remaining Psalms within the context of base realities: obedience to torah for the sake of creation. As the climax of the collection, understood as a series of intensifying parallelisms, it depicts the fulfilment of that reality with an arrival in Zion/new creation itself, albeit an arrival by the Lord with Jacob apparently in his train. 


A final clarification is provided by the Book of Isaiah, itself related to the Psalter, which deals with the persistent problem of Israel's disobedience by reconstituting it by means of the “Servant,” the “father” of 3^rd Isaiah's redeemed “servants.” Thus, similar to 2 Sam 7 and in line with the dialectic of Ps 24, the Lord's creation intentions come to fruition in Zion upon the entry of a newly constituted Jacob, created and led by the Lord. Like Ps 24, however, Isaiah closes with the Lord still poised before the gates, leaving the consummation of Israel's pilgrimage open to the future. 


Finally, in an attempt to clarify the Psalm's theological subject matter in its “economic” and “ontological” dimensions, this reading of Ps 24 is brought into dialogue with patristic and rabbinic exegesis, Jenson's Trinitarian metaphysic of heaven and Farrow's treatment of the Ascension

The substance of Psalm 24

This is a provisional attempt to briefly summarize my understanding of the reality to which Psalm 24 testifies. I'd appreciate critical feedback or suggestions:

The reality attested to by the final form of Psalm 24 is a protological/eschatological narrative in which God's own destiny consists in communion with a righteous people in the context of new creation, a reality proleptically experienced in the temple yet consistently interrupted by the presence of cosmic and human evil and thus the need for divine militant intervention. Despite the requirement of wilful human participation in this reality, it is ultimately God himself who not only creates the space of new creation but also the people to inhabit it.

Even this is not the "rock bottom" reality to which Psalm 24 witnesses, as it is only the economic unfolding of the eternal ontological being of God himself. Thus, the reality to which Psalm 24 witnesses is not the "narrative" of God's activity but the eternal substance of his being himself. But I'm writing this for an Oxford Psalms conference so I have to watch my language.

Law and Grace in Pss 15-24?

Many scholars consider the Psalms group 15-24 to be a consciously redacted whole. The so-called "torah-entrance" Psalms 15 and 24 frame the whole, forming the outer boundaries of chiasm with 19 in the middle (see the articles by Hossfeld & Zenger and Patrick Miller for the details). Barbiero (in Das erste Psalmbuch als Einheit, 1999) claims that one of the effects of this composition is to give a depth dimension to the concept of "righteousness" before God. In my post Is Ps 15 "softened" by Ps 24? I quoted his claim that the righteousness required as prerequisite for entrance into the sanctuary in Psalm 15 is supplemented by Psalm 19's confession that such righteousness is impossible (Ps 19:12-13): "It is only when YHWH forgives, and not out of one's own strength, that the worshipper can become innocent."

Barbiero goes on to make a similar statement concerning the entire collection of Psalms 15-24 (first in German, than my translation in italics):

Die drei Psalmen 22-23-24 sind darüber hinaus durch das Wort צדק verbunden (22,23; 23, 3; 24,5). In ihnen bekommt das Wort eine andere Betonung als in den Psalmen 15-18 (vgl. 15,2; 17,1.15; 18,21.25). War dort von menschlicher Leistung die Rede (die Gerechtigkeit war die Bedingung, in s Heiligtum Einlaß zu bekommen bzw. von Gott erhört zu werden), so ist hier die Gerechtigkeit vorwiegend eine Gabe Gottes. In 22,32 wird die צדקתו, die Gerechtigkeit Gottes verkündet, die sich durch die Rettungstat als solche erwiesen hat. In 23,3 ist von einer Führung Gottes durch die "Pfade der Gerechtigkeit" die Rede. Sie ist als eine Andeutung auf die Tora zu verstehen (vgl. 19,10). In 24,5 ist nun die צדקה die Gabe, die der (gerechte) Tempelbesucher von dem "Gott seines Heils" bekommt (p. 283).

In addition to this, the three Psalms 22-23-24 are connected by the word צדק (Pss 22:23; 23: 3; 24:5). In these Psalms, the word receives a different emphasis to the the one in Psalms 15-18 (cf. Pss 15:2; 17:1,15; 18:21,25). Whereas there the emphasis is on human accomplishment (righteousness is the condition for either entering the sanctuary or being heard by God), here the righteousness of God is primarily a gift of God. The righteousness of God (צדקתו) is proclaimed in Ps 22:32 as something which has been proved itself by an act of salvation. In Ps 23:3 there is talk of being led by God within the "paths of righteousness." This is to be understood as an allusion to the Torah (cf. Ps 19:10). In Ps 24:5 צדקה is now a gift, which the (righteous) visitor to the temple receives from "the God of his salvation" (p. 283).

What do you think? Does this work?

The "hidden message" of Ps 24?

In his doctroal thesis on Ps 24 (Psalm 24 als Text zwischen den Texten, Peter Lang, 2004; written under N. Lohfink), Jerzy Seremak has a rather esoteric theory about the hidden message (verborgene Botschaft) of Ps 24. It goes like this:

1. The majority of poetic lines in the Psalm involve ellipsis, in which a key word from one colon is elided in the second. For example, in verse 2 we have: "for he has founded it upon the seas // and established it upon the rivers." For he is elided in the second colon.
2. This "pattern of ellipsis" can be found in vv. 1, 2, 4b, 5, and 6.
3. The words which are elided are the following, in order:

• 24:1 לַיהוה
• 24:2: כִּי־הוּא
• 24:4b: אשׁר (note the deletion of vowels)
• 24:5: יִשָּׂא
• זֶה דּוֹר 24:6

His next step is to read these isolated words backwards, so that a new sentence is formed:

זה דור ישׂא אשׁר כי הוא ליהוה

Seremak then translates this phrase as follows:

This generation will receive happiness, because it belongs to Yhwh.

This is the hidden message of Ps 24.

I have a number of problems with this:

1. I've never come across the concept of hidden messages in the Psalms.
2. I've never heard that one can isolate elided nouns and make new sentences out of them.
3. Why does Seremak think it OK to change the vocalisation of one word, changing the relative pronoun to the noun אֶשֶׁר (happiness)?
4. It ignores vv. 7-10, which surely must contribute to the secret message of the whole.
5. It assumes that the word "generation" in the psalm is in the absolute state, thus separable from "his seekers."
6. אֶ֫שֶׁר is always in the plural in the context of an exclamation (e.g. Ps 1:1) and does not collocate with "receive" (though it can appear with the relative pronoun, cf. Ps 65:5).
7. The so-called hidden message seems to be rather lame given 1) the richness of the Psalm and 2) the effort one has to make in order to extract it.

Can anyone else see any reasons to accept or reject this proposal?

Creatio and conservatio in Ps 24:2? Hossfeld's grammatical and Biblical arguments.

The future/imperfect/yiqtol verb (take your pick) יְכוֹנְנֶהָ in Ps 24: 2 can be variously translated as "established," "establishing," "establishes," or even "will establish." In other words, just about ever time-point in the English tense spectrum. Whereas some translations don't seem to make too much difference to the meaning ("established," "establishing" and "establishes," understood as the "historical present," would all refer to the past), others have cosmological implications. I have already discussed the first two options here and then here (with some great contributions in the comments from Hobbins and Bekins). I discovered yesterday, however, a new proposition by a contemporary scholar (Hossfeld, who has just retired this semester from Bonn, much to my distress) has opted to follow Bäthgen's suggestion that

Das Perf. יסדה geht auf die Schöpfung, das Imperf. יכוננה auf die Erhaltung. (The perfect יסדה refers creation, the imperfect יכוננה refers to its preservation)

In other words, he translates יְכוֹנְנֶהָ with a present simple ("establishes"), though understood as an actual ongoing activity (="continuing to establish").

Hossfeld interprets the cosmological significance of this verb form as follows:

"Wie ein Architekt hat er die Erde gegründet (creatio) und festigt sie ständig gegen das Chaos der Wasserfluten (conservatio)." (Like an architect he founded the earth (creatio) and stabilizes it continually in the face of the chaos of the floods (conservatio).

And here is the grammatical argument that clinches it for him:

Der tempuswechsel beim MT (abgeschlossenes, vergangenes und duratives Geschehen) ist beabsichtigt und wird durch die nahestehende Parallele Spr 3, 19 (Perfekt-Partizip) bestätigt. Er ziehlt auf die beiden Aspekte der Schöpfung, creatio und conservatio. (The switch in tense in MT [a completed, past and a contiuing event] is intentional and is confirmed by the related parallel in Prov 3:19 [perfect-participle]. It aims at both dimensions of creation: creatio and conservatio).

So you can check for yourself, here's the Prov 3:19 text:

יהוה בְּחָכְמָה יָסַד־אָרֶץ כּוֹנֵן שָׁמַיִם בִּתְבוּנָה׃

So, what do people think? Does the participle here confirm Hossfeld's interpretation? (I should add that Roland Murphy (in WBC) translates the participle as a gerund, and not as a continous present: "The Lord founded the world with wisdom, establishing the heavens with intelligence").

So much for the grammatical argument. Hossfeld goes onto to provide Biblical-theological evidence in the form of citations from other Psalms:

YHWH hat Meere und Ströme anfänglich besiegt und übt seitdem eine dauernde Kontrolle über sie aus. Er garantiert die kosmische Stabilität (vgl. Ps 29, 3.10 93, 1-3 136, 6) auf unbegrenzte Dauer wie in Ps 104, 5 (vgl. Ps 48, 9) [Yhwh originally conquered sea and currents and has since then exercised continual control over them. He guarantees cosmic stability (Ps 29:3, 10; Ps 93:1-3; and Ps 136:6) in perpetuity, as in Ps 104:5 (cf. Ps 48:9)]

My question: are these verses enough to witness to creatio continua (or however you say it in Latin)?

Concerning Ps 93: 1-3, Craigie (who translates the yiqtols as past tense) has the following to say:

the cosmogonic victory of Yahweh should not be treated as a purely past event. The context of acclamation indicates a continuing threat: Why the acclamation of Yahweh as the Victor King if the “floods” have long ceased to be a problem? The pounding, surging, and roaring of the “floods” are never far away. The seas of chaos are tamed, but their mighty roar hangs in the air like an echo ...In a sense the “floods” belong to the distant past, but their primordial roaring is also contemporary.

Update: Chris Tilling has been doing some thinking in a related area. In this post he struggles with the "Biblicality" of the concept of creatio ex nihilo, and in this post he shares some thoughts on creation, chaos, and nothingness by Bauckham.

The function of the root נשא in Ps 24?

According to proponents of literary interpretations of the Psalms, one should be sensitive to the repetition of keywords, keeping an eye out for the way in which their repetition may contribute to the overall meaning of the Psalm.

One such proponent is Beat Weber. I should point out before I continue that his commentary (it's more of a practical work book), Werkbuch Psalmen I, is one of my favourite Psalms commentaries of all time. It is possibly the only commentary I have which sends me away feeling like I have stuck my nose in every nook and cranny the Psalm has to offer. I really get to know the psalm in an intimate way. This is the advantage of literary approaches: they literally trawl a text for every linguistic artifact that can be dug up, interpreted, and fed into our understanding of the poem (Fokkelmann is another example, see his defence of the approach here). This is also a weakness of the approach, however. At least in the sense that we can't always take everything that is suggested too seriously. Sometimes significance is seen where in fact we only have chance. The text can be overinterpreted.

One possible example is the significance of the root נשא, which occurs in relatively high concentration in Psalm 24 (vv. 4b, 5a, 7a, b, 9a, b). Does this root constitute a keyword, a consciously placed literary device designed to broker new meaning in places we wouldn't have first expected it?

Beat Weber thinks so. In fact, he ranks it alongside he question-answer schema found in the Psalm (vv. 3, 8, 10) as primary evidence for the fact that the psalmist has “carefully conjoined” what many scholars think are two separate blocks within the Psalm: Ps 24:3-6 and 7-10 ("sections 2 and 3" in my scheme).

What follows is my critique of his theory. I should reiterate that I love Weber's commentary! Please don't think this represents an rejection of his book or his method at all. And please do point out where I am missing the point. I love being corrected.

Here goes. In short, he sees the נשא of v. 4 as signifying the ethical behaviour of the pilgrim and the נשא of v. 5 as signifying the the blessing that accrues upon such behaviour. Weber understands these two verbs as together signifying the entrance of the pilgrim into the temple. The נשא of the second stanza refer to the entrance of God himself into the sanctuary. The effect of the repetition of the root is to conjoin these two different entrances, in some manner. What this means for Weber, however, is determined by his broader interpretation of the relation between the parts of the Psalm, and not the semantics of נשא per se. In other words, the repetition of the root simply further "hooks" together what he thinks is paralleled anyway. In short, he believes that both entrances, divine and human, mirror each other in that the entrance of God and the entrance of the pilgrim fulfil the holy requirements of the sanctuary. The function of נשא, then, is to “interlock” (verzahnen) these two entrances further. To quote:

The 'ascension' and 'standing' of the pilgrim (before YHWH) (v. 3) must be in inner accordance with the (antecedent) 'coming/entrance' of YHWH (v. 7c; 9c). [*]

In my opinion, this interpretation of the significance of נשא seems forced and Weber's interpretation of the broader relation between the stanzas themselves appears untenable.

First, the significance of נשא:

1. It is hard to imagine that נשא in v. 4b can adequately represent the ethical requirements of the pilgrim. It is only one for four stated requirements, inconspicuously hidden in the middle of a tricolon.

2. Seen from a different angle, the יִשָּׂא of v. 5a could (on the traditional reading of the syntax of these verses, cf. Waltke-O'Connor, §31.6.2) certainly refer to the future consequence of the actions and states represented in v. 4. It relates however, to the whole verse, and not just to 4b.

3. Can שְׂאוּ/וְֽהִנָּשְׂאוּ represent Yhwh's entrance to the sanctuary? It could do, perhaps, but even if it did, it does not parallel the use of נשא in vv. 4-5, as there they predicate the one entering the sanctuary, whereas here they predicate the sanctuary itself. This is particularly troublesome if the supposed function of the repetition of this root is to highlight the parallel conditions that both entrants must fulfil.

4. The verb seems to have such different meanings in each occurrence. In the first occurrence (v. 4) it is part of an idiom about either using God's name in vain (cf. Exod 20:7) or worshipping false idols; in the second (v. 5a) it refers to the reception of blessing, in the final usages (vv. 7 and 9) it refers to the lifting of the heads of gates.

In short, it would seem that any direct connections between the uses of this root in Ps 24 are non-existent. Even at the auditory level there is no connection: the different moods (subjunctive/indicative, imperative), stems (qal, Nifal), conjugations (3rd person singular; 2nd person plural), and voice (active, passive) all sound very different.

Secondly: the broader relations between the stanzas (i.e. the perceived parallel in qualities required of both pilgrim and the Lord, the former following on the heels of the latter). Apart from the (IMHO) untenable view that God enters the temple before the pilgrim, there seems to be little that connects the requirements for their entrance. On the contrary, the two are strongly contrasted with each other. Whereas the pilgrim must fulfil ritual and ethical requirements as found in the Torah, God mustn't do anything, he's the King. When pushed, he lists his military attributes, which are hardly ethical requirements found in Torah. In addition to this, these attributes are not required by anyone, they're just stated as self-evident signs of authority and power. In the end, it would seem that it is not the attributes that gets him in but his special title: the Lord of Hosts (v. 10b). Again, even the nature of the dialogue is very different: the former consists of serene (or is it yearning?) question and answer, the latter consists of self-confident demand and resistant response.

So, we are still left with the question: can we attribute significance to the repetition of נשא, one that accords with a basic semantic sense purposely placed in each instance?

[*] Mit dem (vorgängigen) “Kommen/Einziehen JHWHs (7c.9c.) muss das “Hinaufziehen” und “(vor ihm) Stehen” der Pilger (3) in innerer Übereinstimmung stehen.

יִשָּׂא in Ps 24:5 as indicative of consequence: Waltke and O'Connor's take

I've been posting on whether יִשָּׂא in Ps 24:5 is an indicative or a jussive. I've just discovered that Waltke and O'Connor discuss this very verb. I here copy and paste the relevant section from my Logos copy (purchased yesterday!):

31.6.2 Future Time

a The prefix conjugation is used to represent a real situation which arises as a consequence of some other situation. Whereas the suffix conjugation may dramatically represent a future situation as an accidental event, the prefix conjugation represents it as a logical consequence of some expressed or unexpressed situation. Though Michel overextends the concept of dependency to all uses of the prefix conjugation, he has plausibly suggested that substantiality in contrast to accidence is one of the differences between the conjugations.

The imperfectum…must designate an action which is not important in itself, but which stands in relationship to something else, and in this relationship has its meaning. In brief: it is dependent.


This use overlaps with some of the modal nuances, which also involve dependency, especially those of capability, of obligation, and of deliberation.

1. כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ מוֹת תָּמוּת׃
…because when you eat of it you shall surely die.
Gen 2:17

2.עֹשֵׂה־אֵלֶּה לֹא יִמּוֹט לְעוֹלָם׃
He who does these things will (or, can) never be shaken.
Ps 15:5

3. וְלֹא נִשְׁבַּע לְמִרְמָה׃ יִשָּׂא בְרָכָה מֵאֵת יהוה
Who does not swear by what is false,34 he will (must) receive blessing from Yhwh.
Ps 24:4–5

4.גַּם כָּל־קֹוֶיךָ לֹא יֵבֹשׁוּ יֵבֹשׁוּ הַבּוֹגְדִים רֵיקָם׃
All who hope in you will (can) not be put to shame; they will (must) be put to shame who are vainly treacherous.
Ps 25:3

5. יהוה אוֹרִי וְיִשְׁעִי מִמִּי אִירָא
Yhwh is my light and my salvation; whom shall (should) I fear?
Ps 27:1

Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Includes indexes.;Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 511.

Is יִשָּׂא in Ps 24:5 jussive?

I have wrestled a number of times with the syntax of the verb יִשָּׂ֣א in Psalm 24:5. Here's the full context:

מִי־יַעֲלֶה בְהַר־יהוה וּמִי־יָקוּם בִּמְקוֹם קָדְשֹׁו׃

4 נְקִי כַפַּיִם וּבַר־לֵבָב אֲשֶׁר לֹא־נָשָׂא לַשָּׁוְא נַפְשִׁי וְלֹא נִשְׁבַּע לְמִרְמָה׃

5 יִשָּׂא בְרָכָה מֵאֵת יהוה וּצְדָקָה מֵאֱלֹהֵי יִשְׁעֹו׃

6 זֶה דּוֹר דֹּרְשָׁו מְבַקְשֵׁי פָּנֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב סֶלָה׃

All translations that I am aware of, ancient and modern, take יִשָּׂ֣א to be a straightforward future, starting a new clause, i.e. "He will receive a blessing" (cf. Ps 15:5). Andersen and Forbes, however, have come up with a different solution. For them, יִשָּׂ֣א is the predicate of the entire of v. 4: i.e. "One clean of hands ... will receive ... ." For a discussion of the pros and cons of this view, see my post What is the syntax of Psalm 24:3-5?

While at SBL in Rome recently, John Hobbins made another suggestion that I find pretty exciting (given its possible interpretative implications). He feels that יִשָּׂ֣א is most likely to be a jussive. This accords with Niccacci's synchronic-discourse approach to the verb in poetry, which holds that clause initial yiqtol verbs, unless doing "double-duty," are always jussive. I guess if Niccacci's approach holds any water, the jussive interpretation is to be preferred, as long as one can prove that יִשָּׂ֣א really is clause initial (see my caveats in aforementioned post). Or are there other grounds for thinking that it is a jussive, beyond its placement in the verse?

Classifying this verb as a jussive, however, still leaves open a bunch of questions for me:

1. What is the "force" of this jussive? Is it expressing a command, request, invitation, or a wish (cf. van der Merwe, §19.4)? The answer is difficult for two reasons: (i) it depends on context, and in Ps 24 the context is a string of discrete entities in juxtaposition, and (ii) according to Walkte-O'Connor, the "sense of a jussive in simple discourse usually follows from the status relations of the speaker and addressee" (§34.3). Yet the identity of the speakers is not given. If we strictly follow BHS an accept the first person suffix in v. 4 (נַפְשִׁי ), we could argue that Yhwh is speaking. In that case, it could express his wish, but it could also be a kind of command: "Let such a person receive a blessing" or even an invitation (cf. Waltke-O'Connor, §34.3). On the other hand, one could also argue that the speakers have switched, so that the person who posed the question in v. 3 is now responding to Yhwh. In that case, the only possibility would be that a wish is being expressed ("O that such a person would receive a blessing").
2. To repeat: Who is expressing this desire/command? The same person who is giving the answer in v. 3 or the person who posed the question in v. 2?
3. What is the function of this wish/command/invitation within the whole? It seems strange that there is a sudden jump to a volitional expression within this context. On the other hand, it contrasts nicely with the immediacy of the imperatives in vv. 7 and 9. Is a wish somehow being realized there?
4. Does the presence of the jussive add to the overall "subjunctivity" of the passage, as I indicated in my post Is Psalm 24:3-6 subjunctive??

In short, my main problem with reading יִשָּׂ֣א as a jussive is semantic: I just don't know what it wants to communicate to us.

I'm off to SBL Rome

Blogging will cease for the next two weeks as I try and make the most of the Society of Biblical Literature's international meeting in Rome. I wrestled with the question of whether it would be worth going or not. On the one hand, listening to lectures is not something I particularly enjoy (I'm told it's ADHD ... Give me a book any day!), on the other hand, I may well meet some important dialogue partners and make connections for the future (I plan to get this doctorate finished by July 2010). The thing that sold me on the idea is a paper by Phil J. Botha of the University of Pretoria. Check out the abstract and you will see that a Psalm 24 junky couldn't wish for more:

Answers Disguised as Questions: Rhetoric and Reasoning in Psalm 24

Psalm 24 seems to be a post-exilic composition comprising of mostly pre-exilic material: a hymnic introduction (vv.1-2), a so-called entrance Torah (vv.3-5), and a liturgical piece once used at the temple gates (vv.7-10) to which a post-exilic identification of the true Israel was added (v.6). One aspect of its exegesis which has possibly been neglected thus far concerns the rhetorical techniques it employs and the argumentative objectives its composer(s) and editors pursued. The questions used in two of its four distinct sections possibly had a different function in their contexts of origin, but the exegete of the Psalter is confronted with the effect and impact of these questions (as well as other tropes employed) in the present composition and literary setting of the psalm. In this paper, the stichometric and poetic structure of Ps 24 is analysed and the possible argumentative objective of the choice of poetic stratagems is discussed.

How interesting is that!

The second paper that I will have to visit is this one:

Ida Zatelli, University of Florence

Biblical Origins of the Ritual Practice of Pilgrimage

The ritual and popular practice of the pilgrimage is widespread in various cultures and religions. In the present work the Biblical links of the rite are examined especially from a linguistic approach. The use of the verb gur, "to wander", "to roam” and that of the noun ger, "wanderer", "foreigner” or even “refugee”, prevalent in the epic narratives of ancient Israel (cfr. for ex. Gen 47,9) convey to the Jewish population the awareness of being “errant”, “itinerant”. Another key word is hag, “feast”, which in many cases involves rites of circumambulation. It is applied to the three principal Jewish celebrations: Sukkot, Pesah, Shavuot; particularly interesting is the analysis of the festival of Sukkot. A specific attention is dedicated to the frequent use of the verb 'ala, "to ascend" (the noun 'aliyya comes to mean "ascent" in post-biblical Hebrew). One ascends to the sacred mountains, to the sanctuaries, and finally 'ala becomes the technical verb that indicates the ascent to the Temple in Jerusalem or to Zion. This verb and yasa, "to exit" appear in Exodus where they describe the journey from Egypt to Canaan and in some post-exilic texts 'ala also refers to the return of the people of Israel. In conclusion, a detailed analysis is devoted to the expression lir'ot (et) pne yhwh , "to see the face of the Lord". (cfr. for ex. Is 1,12), which shows clearly the ultimate aim of the ascension to the Temple, very frequently not appropriately rendered in translation. The analysis of the above mentioned terminology allows us to define the origin of the rite of 'aliyya leregel, "pilgrimage" in post-biblical texts and to throw light on a very popular and widespread ritual in those religions that are based on the Bible.

Unfortunately, the timing of the various papers is not ideal. From my perspective, all of the most interesting subjects are on the first day at take place at the same time, which means I will have to miss a bunch. The two papers above back on to each other, meaning I will have to rush from one room to the other in order to make it on time, missing another interesting paper on the reception history of Psalm 1 (though luckily Gillingham is coming to Bonn soon, where I believe she will be repeating the paper). Oh well, one of my favourite activities is reading in cafés with a cigar and decent cappuccino, and where can one do that better than in Rome (really, the cappuccino there is in a class of its own)?

Ingrid (my wife) will be flying out on the Saturday, so we'll be spending another week in the city doing the regular tourist stuff (though I intend to thoroughly explore the Jewish quarter, probably the most interesting thing Rome has to offer).

Anyway, I wish who ever is reading this a enjoyable and erholsamer (restorative) summer break. :)

Questions to ask a Biblical poem

As anyone who follows this blog will have noticed by now, I am working on an interpretation of Psalm 24, trying to take into account its textual, poetic, historical, literary, and theological dimensions (have I missed a dimension? For posts to date go here). One "means of entry" to the Psalm that I have been using is a list of questions that the Dutch Hebrew scholar Jan Fokkelman believes we ought to pose any example of Biblical poetry (I've got to question 11 so far; the most fruitful for Ps 24 was question 1). I thought I'd share them here and ask if anyone thinks an important question has been left out, or whether a question posed ought to be fine tuned:

1.Who is speaking, an “I” or a “we”? Can we picture this lyrical subject? Does it change in the course of the poem?

2.Whom is the lyrical subject addressing? Is the addressee visible in the text, or can we put a face to him/her? Does the addressee change? Do we encounter apostrophe?

3.How long are the sentences? Check every time whether the syntactic unit coincides with the colon, the verse, or even a strophe. In other words: does enjambment occur?

4.Which verb tenses are used? Are the various tenses (present, past, future) distributed over the strophes?

5.a.Which modes are used besides the indicative?1 Wishes, commands, exclamations?
b. Are there actions, or descriptions of qualities?

6.How do space and time function in the lyrical world?

7.Can a diagram be drawn of the relations between the lyrical characters—for instance, a triangle such as me-God-enemy?

8.How long are cola and verses, generally?

9.a. How much parallelism (both semantic and morphological) is there between half-verses? Ask yourself regularly if the “A, what's more, B” rule applies.
b. How much parallelism exists between the verses? And between the strophes?

10.Try to find the demarcation of strophes and stanzas. What devices does the poet use to create these units? Are there any boundary markers?

11.Is the cohesion of the strophe internal or external? Try to indicate the nature of the internal cohesion.

12.a. Does the poet use simile?
b. Metaphors?
c. Metonymy? Synechdoche? Symbols?

13.How are the verses related in regard to meaning?

14.And the strophes? Are they steps in a line of argument?

15.How does the theme develop? Is a specific line of thought followed?

16.What are the keywords?

17.Be sensitive to contrasts, oppositions, and transitions.

18.Try to make the most of various forms of repetition by listening for it and testing the function of variation-in-repetition.

What is the syntax of Ps 24:3-5?

For the Hebrew of this ... sentence ... go here.

All translations of Ps 24:5 that I know of (including commentaries) treat v. 5 as starting a new clause: "He will receive ... ." Andersen-Forbes, however, analyse this differently. They see vv. 4-5a as being one sentence, with the whole of v. 4 being the subject of the verb יִשָּׂא in v. 5. This would render the translation: "One clean of hands ... who has not lifted ... will receive."

My question is: What makes this a better reading then the typical one?

Here are the pros and cons of A-F's suggestion that I can think of:

Cons:

- The question in v. 3 is only indirectly answered, which is odd. Having said that, the answer is clarified once more in v. 6, so perhaps this is intentional ... . The indirectness of the answer may relate to the function of the section within the context of the whole Psalm.

- Though subject and verb are part of one clause, poetically they cross a strophe boundary (vv. 3-4//5-6), which may be unusual.

Pros:

These become particularly clear when we compare the Psalm to Psalm 15, its close relative:

- Ps 15 also has noun-phrases followed by qatal verbs in the section describing qualifications for temple entrance (vv. 2-5). The difference is, the qatals in Ps 24 are preceded by אֲשֶׁר, which A-F consider to be a "nominalizer." That means that the following two qatal clauses, in contrast to Ps 15, "function [syntactically] as a noun." (I have to say, however, that this is an odd concept for me ... I don't see, for example, how Deut 13.7 is "nominalized." Hay anyone heard of this concept?).

- Ps 15:5c, like Ps 24:5, is a promise of the benefits such a righteous person would receive. The difference is that in Ps 15 an extra subject is added beforehand: עֹשֵׂה־אֵלֶּה. In Psalm 24, there is no extra subject before the verb. Admittedly, this happens elsewhere in the Bible (cf. Isa 3:7), but not only is the entire preceding verse nominalized (unlike in Isa 3:6), the subject of the verb is repeated afterwards in v. 6, as if one wanted to clarify the answer to the question in v. 3.

- V. 4 as subject is syntactically possible (i.e. noun-phrase+relative clause). It occurs 4 times in poetic books: Pss 24:4-5; 35:8; 41:10; 86:9 and c. 67 times in the rest of the Bible. A good example of a very similar construction with a long subject is Deut 28:56. The first noun-phrase consists of two elements and the relative clause consists of two further subclauses (and this isn't even poetry, so there's no parallelism!). Cf. also Num 9:13; Josh 1:18; and Ezra 6:5 (in Aramaic), which have especially similar structures.

Is Ps 24:3-6 subjunctive?

I posted yesterday that I thought it wasn't. I've now had second thoughts.

Here's the text:

מִי־יַעֲלֶה בְהַר־יהוה

וּמִי־יָקוּם בִּמְקוֹם קָדְשׁו׃

4 נְקִי כַפַּיִם וּבַר־לֵבָב

אֲשֶׁר לֹא־נָשָׂא לַשָּׁוְא נַפְשִׁי

וְלֹא נִשְׁבַּע לְמִרְמָה׃
5 יִשָּׂא בְרָכָה מֵאֵת יהוה

וּצְדָקָה מֵאֱלֹהֵי יִשְׁעֹו׃
6 זֶה דּוֹר דֹּרְשָׁו

מְבַקְשֵׁי פָּנֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב סֶלָה׃

Here's my interpretation:

If modality “refers to (the orientation of a speaker concerning) the actuality of a process" (van der Merwe), do the questions in v. 3 refer to a fact (i.e. indicative: “who is allowed to ascend”) or to a “wish, expectation, possibility or uncertainty about the actuality of a matter” (i.e. subjunctive: “who may ascend”). The answer seems to depend upon exegesis: is the question a dispassionate one about a matter of fact or does it imply desire on the part of the speaker? Again, the characteristics listed in v. 4 sounds like a string of indicatives, statements of fact ("one who has not done such and such"). But the context is one of non-factual possibilities, not an actual description of a person. This is strengthened by the fact that the subject of the verb comes in v. 5: יִשָּׂא. Given the parallel with the yiqtol verbs in the question in v.3, the verb indicates will receive a blessing if he ascends (this is the "first conditional" form). The demonstrative זֶה of v. 6, then, refers to this hypothetical entity (whether it actually exists or not is beside the point). Thus, given the context, v. 6 would also be a subjunctive.

Who may ascend Yhwh's hill?

and who may stand in his sanctuary?

One of innocent hands and a pure heart -

who hasn't lifted up my soul to nothing

nor sworn falsley -

will receive a blessing from Yhwh

and vindication from his saving God.

This one would be a genration that seeks him,

that searche out your face, O Jacob.

Does this work?

The "may" expresses the personal benefits of ascending (rather than "shall" or "will"). The answer to the question is indirect. It is like a conditional sentence (the "1st conditional"): "if he is this, he will do this."

I have other reasons for wanting to emphasise the subjunctivity of the section.

Is בקש פנים liturgical?

The phrase מְבַקְשֵׁי פָנֶיךָ יַעֲקב ("who seek your face, O Jacob") in Psalm 24:6 has been text critical headache for generations, as I posted about here. One argument in favour of the Septuagint's alternative rendering (ζητούντων τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ θεοῦ Ιακωβ, "those who seek the face of the God of Jacob") is that בקש פנים belongs to liturgical idiom. Tromp says:

like the verb drš of verse 6a bkš properly signifies the appearing before a god's statue (Kittel, 1929:95). Indeed the lexicon shows that bqš pnym in the Old Testament is exclusively used for a visit to the king (twice) and to God, in order to obtain good advice or help (five times); for this see especially Psalms 27,8 and 105,4 (Gesenius-Buhl, 112B).

I'm probably missing something here, but since when is visiting a king a liturgical act? And if it isn't, then doesn't that simply undermine the argument that, on the basis of the terminology alone, one ought to expect מְבַקְשֵׁי פָנֶיךָ to supplement by אֱלהִים ?

Another question: is the use of the phrase in Psalms 27:8 (אֶת־פָּנֶיךָ יהוה אֲבַקֵּשׁ) and 105:4 (בַּקְּשׁוּ פָנָיו תָּמִיד) necessarily liturgical? Why can't it refer to seeking God in prayer apart from the temple (as the lament Psalms of sickness do)?

Psalm 24 in early Christian exegesis (in commemoration of Ascension Day)

Yesterday was Ascension Day, and as promised in my post on Resurrection Day, I will here give an outline of the reception of a Psalm that has, traditionally, had a special place in this festival. My source is E. Kähler's excellent Studien zum Te Deum und zur Geschichte des 24 Psalmes in der Alten Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1958).

The oldest undeniable reference to Psalm 24 (Kähler wonders whether it lies behind 1 Corinthians 2:8) is in the Apocalypse of Peter, in which Peter, during the Transfiguration and the appearance Moses and Elijah (Matt 17), asks Jesus where the other righteous are. As answer, he receives a vision of Paradise filled with believers. In this vision, the righteous—who are identified with the righteous of Ps 24:6— are kept in a kind of “pre-Heaven” as prisoners. A dramatic scene then enfolds, in which Jesus and the two prophets ascend first into this “First Heaven” and then take the righteous further upwards into the true Heaven, the Second Heaven, in order to consumate their salvation. This ascension creates “great fear and horror,” implying that some kind of celestial resistance needs to be overcome. This occurs with the calling out of Ps 24:7: “Open wide the Gates, you princes.”

Here is the relevant text, with allusion to Ps 24 underlined:

And behold, suddenly a voice came from Heaven and said: “This is my dear son, with whom I am pleased, and my commandments …” And an extremely large and sparkling white cloud came over our head and took up our Lord and Moses and Elijah. And I quaked and was horrified. And we looked upwards and Heaven opened up and we saw people in the flesh, and they came and greeted our Lord and Moses and Elijah and ascended into the Second Heaven. Then the word of scripture was fulfilled: “This generation seeks him and seeks the face of the God of Jacob.” And great fear and horror occurred in Heaven. The angels grouped together so that the word of Scripture would be fulfilled: “Open wide the Gates, you princes.” Following this, the Heaven which had been opened was closed again.”[*]

This understanding of the Psalm remained incredibly fruitful throughout the history of the early church, within all the major theological centres (Palestine, Alexandria, Carthage, South Gaul, Rome, Asia Minor). For the sake of space, I will simply list the main variations and emphases as found amongst the major theologians of these schools in this period:

• For Justin, in his dialogue with the Jew Trypho, our Psalm functioned as a prophecy of Jesus' ascension. He read it in connection with the other major Christian proof texts: Isaiah 53 and Daniel 7:13. The Isaiah passage seems to have furnished him with the answer to the question as to why Jesus experienced resistance before the gates of heaven. He arose in the from of the suffering servant, as so was not recognised by the keepers of the gate.


• For Irenaeus, Jesus is not recognised because he was “in the flesh.” He also interprets the dialogue between gate keeper and those requesting access as being between angels of the lower realms and angels of the upper realms.


• Tertullian is the first to categorise the Lord demanding entrance as homo (“man”).


• Hippolytus is the first to categorise the Lord as soter (saviour), a term with ecclesiological and political overtones.


• Interestingly, the Gnostics also had a similar interpretation, which in itself is not un-Christian. They identified the identity of the Lord with Psalm 22:6: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people”


• Origin applies the standard Christian eschatological interpretation to his allegorical interpretation of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, understood as his entrance into the “true” Jerusalem. The city is astounded at his entrance and asks, “Who is this?” Again, the confusion is due to Jesus' incarnation.


• In the time of Athanasius, this standard interpretation had become so established that he could simply assume it when interpreting other texts, e.g. the motif of incarnation and exultation in Phil. 2:5-11. For Athanasius and those like him, the Psalm had become “a means of making events which would have otherwise been impossible to know about both conceivable and tellable.”


• Later Church Fathers added their own interpretations. Augustine interpreted the mythological language ethically, while Ambrosius talked of the Lord's entrance into the human soul. Nevertheless, the basic schema remained the same.


• As far as I can see, one Church Father who took an innovative but later popular route is Gregory of Nyssa, for whom the Psalm was a supplement to the written gospels themselves, reporting events not contained therein. In a sermon on the Psalm, Gregory understands the two-fold questioning (vv. 7 and 10) as representing two different events, and two different locations. The first concerns Christ's descent to earth, where he went on to conquer the gates of Hell (hence his identification as “mighty warrior”). The second refers to the gates of heaven, where he returns, having completed his mission. In order to access to the first, he became incarnate. On his return journey, however, he remained incarnate, thus the inability of the angels to recognise him on his return.


• This “Harrowing of Hell” motif finds its most significant development in the Gospel of Nicodemus (as I posted on here, thanks to Vox Stefani). According to this account, two righteous Jews who had been resurrected from the dead shortly after Jesus' own resurrection give eyewitness reports on how their resurrection actually took place. In short, Jesus entered Hell and there was a call to open the gates. Satan responded by locking them in fear. The enslaved saints inside cried out again for the doors to be opened. Satan's partner, inferus, asks “Who is the king of glory?” King David, in his function as prophet, answers with Ps. 24:8 and repeats the demand to open the door. Inferus binds Satan and, so it seems, lets Jesus in. Jesus enters, establishes his “war trophy” (Siegeszeichen), which is the cross, and then takes all the saints to Heaven.

[*] My translation, based on the German translation by E. Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (1924). Cited in Kähler, Te Deum, 54.