Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology
Overview
Known as one of America’s best theologians and one of the world’s foremost scholars on the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann has inspired young scholars and students and driven the discourse on theology with some of the biggest players in contemporary Bible scholarship.
“Praise is the duty and delight, the ultimate vocation of the human community; indeed of all creation. Yet, all life is aimed toward God and finally exists for the sake of God. Praise articulates and embodies our capacity to yield, submit, and abandon ourselves in trust and gratitude to the One whose we are. Praise is not only a human requirement and a human need, it is also a human delight. We have a resilient hunger to move beyond self, to return our energy and worth to the One from whom it has been granted. In our return to that One, we find our deepest joy. That is what it means to glorify God and enjoy God forever.”—from the Introduction
Israel’s Praise contends that, rightly practiced, the Psalms of Israel make available an evangelical world of Yahweh’s sovereignty—a world marked by justice, righteousness, mercy, peace, and compassion.
With the Logos Bible Software edition, you can journey through this volume with today’s most advanced tools for reading and studying God’s Word. All Scripture passages are linked to your library’s original language texts and English translations. Enhance your study with Logos’ advanced features—search by topic to find out what Brueggemann teaches on the Exodus, or find every mention of “Psalm 91” throughout his works.
Key Features
- Provides essential Old Testament scholarship from one of the most prominent living scholars
- Examines the social interaction and function of the Psalms
- Includes material perfect for pastors, professors, counselors, and Old Testament scholars
Contents
- Praise as a Constitutive Act
- The Psalms as Creative Acts
- The Constitutive Power of Praise
- World-Making as an Imaginative Enterprise
- Conclusion
- The “World” of Israel’s Doxology
- The Gospel of Enthronement
- The Liturgy of Liberation
- A New World for Exiles
- Conclusion
- Doxology at the Edge of Ideology: The King of Majesty and Mercy
- Reality Given, Reality Imposed
- The Gospel under Royal Supervision
- The Interplay of Resilience and Distortion
- World-Making and Royal Legitimacy
- “Singing down” and “Singing up”
- A World Sung as Raw, Primitive, Revolutionary
- Doxology without Reason: The Loss of Israel’s World of Hope
- When Summons Preempts Reason
- When Concreteness Is Generalized
- When Transformation Becomes Abiding Order
- A Mute God, a Static World
- A World Ordered against Hope
- Doxology inside the “Claims of Time and Sorrow”
- A World Too Certain
- Pain as the Locus of Possibility
- Pain as the Matrix of Praise
- Little Stories of Hurt, Little Songs of Grief
- A New God Sung to Reality
- The Praise of God as Duty and Delight
Product Details
- Title: Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology
- Author: Walter Brueggemann
- Publisher: Augsburg Fortress
- Publication Date: 1988
- Pages: 208
About Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann through his teaching, lecturing, and writing, has effectively demonstrated the significance of the Old Testament for our fractured world today. Recognized as the preeminent interpreter of the ancient texts in relation to questions posed by a variety of academic disciplines, he has shown the way toward a compelling understanding of the major components of the faith and life of ancient Israel, especially its Psalms, the prophets, and the narratives. His award-winning Theology of the Old Testament quickly became a foundational work in the field.
Brueggemann, who holds a ThD from Union Seminary, New York, and a PhD from St. Louis University, is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He was previously professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis. His many Fortress Press books, including The Threat of Life: Sermons on Pain, Power, and Weakness, exhibit a fecund combination of imaginative power, sound scholarship, and a passion of justice and redemption.
Top Highlights
“Thus it is commonly agreed that Gen. 1:1–2:4a is a liturgical text in which the community ‘remembers’ God’s creating event, but also reenacts and participates in it in order to give pattern to present experience, presumably in the exile. Praise is not a response to a world already fixed and settled, but it is a responsive and obedient participation in a world yet to be decreed and in process of being decreed through this liturgical act.” (Page 11)
“In this final chapter I want to reflect on the significance of this analysis for the praise of the contemporary church and on the opportunity and responsibility for pastoral leadership as world-making.1 We have seen that doxology, when made a vehicle for established power, functions in the service of a safe idolatry and an uncriticized ideology.” (Pages 123–124)
“That is, praise is not only a religious vocation, but it is also a social gesture that effects the shape and character of human life and human community.7 Inevitably praise does its work among human persons as much as it does in the courts of heaven.” (Page 3)
“Second, I have wanted to be attentive to the central task of the pastor within the Christian congregation, and within a culture that continues to draw heavily from and rely seriously upon theological claims and assurances. After two generations of the splintering ‘professionalism’ of ordained ministry,4 we are at a moment when ordained ministry is being refocused on the pastoral, liturgical task of nurturing a communal, intentional, and often alternative imagination.” (Page x)
- Title: Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology
- Author: Walter Brueggemann
- Publisher: Fortress Press
- Print Publication Date: 1988
- Logos Release Date: 2013
- Era: era:Contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. Psalms › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Sociology, Biblical; Pastoral theology; Liturgics; Ideology; Idolatry
- Resource ID: LLS:ISRAELSPRAISE
- Resource Type: text.monograph.biblical-theology
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-12T04:02:19Z