Psalms

Alastair G. Hunter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134797479
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Psalms examines the nature of the Psalms as a text in English, dealing specifically with the problem of translation and various aspects of the 'techniques' on reading, with relation to traditional approaches within Biblical studies and contemporary literary theory. Alastair Hunter also outlines a programmatic approach to reading and applies it to a selection of individual Psalms.

Part I

THEORY AND PRACTICE

1

TRANSLATING AND READING

Preliminary comments

You are urged therefore to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labour in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed.

(Sirach: The Prologue [RSV¹])

These words, translated from Greek written nearly twenty-two centuries ago, and themselves a comment on a translation from Hebrew into Greek, indicate the fundamental dilemma confronting any proposal to embark upon a literary reading of the Psalms. Quite simply the ‘Psalms’ which are under consideration are neither hatt^ehilim—the Hebrew title of the collection found in standard editions of the Jewish Bible²—nor those psalmoi with which the writers of the New Testament were probably familiar. However regrettable it may be, we have to acknowledge that our study is at most second-best: a reading, or series of readings, of material which has already become distanced from its sources.

The question we must begin with is simply this: ‘Is translation either possible or appropriate?’ Much ink and effort has been spilled or spent on this probably unresolvable quandary. The question may be put with different degrees of severity, from absolute embargo to the modest requirement that the reader note the difficulties. The translator of Sirach no doubt belongs to the moderate part of that particular spectrum. The problem also varies according to the status of the material we wish to translate. A simple request for directions, or a friendly greeting, can no doubt be expressed in many different languages with limited loss of comprehension. Instructions as to how to make things work ought to be susceptible to accurate translation, assuming both linguistic and technical competence on either side. The difficulties increase, however, with growth of sophistication in linguistic use. Jokes are a real hazard because they depend upon both verbal double entendre and cultural context. But it is when we encounter anything which merits, at whatever level, the label ‘literature’ that those who object to translation have a strong case.

What is the point, they might say, of deceiving ourselves into thinking that anything important of the Greek epic known as the Iliad survives a rendering into English? No doubt there is an English work—or rather a number of such works—of this title; but it is a fundamentally different composition. Far better that we should cut our losses and recognise that we simply cannot have access to literature in languages with which we are unfamiliar. In the religious realm, it is often claimed that the Holy Qur'an is of this kind: there may exist interpretations in other languages, but the Qur'an itself is and must remain Arabic; and Arabic of a particular time and place. Even a native speaker of some modern branch of the Arabic language may be considerably distanced from the Qur'an.

There is undoubtedly a genuine point to be made here, but in its most uncompromising form it surely excludes more than is necessary, and is overly pessimistic about the ability of people of different languages, cultures and ages to communicate at quite subtle levels. A similar debate takes place over such issues as black experience, feminism and the situation of the oppressed, where there are those who argue for the exclusive rights of blacks to speak on the subject of discrimination on the basis of colour and of women to comment on feminist affairs. The legitimate reservation to be entered in both cases is that the extreme position tends to dismiss the fact of shared humanity as being of no importance. Can it not reasonably be held that some communication can take place across all barriers? The alternative implied by the purist stance is that we resign ourselves to mutual silence—a counsel, surely, of despair. For if it were to be taken to its natural conclusion, we would be barred from the literature not only of those whose language is not ours but of those whose distance from us in time or place renders them mute. If the belief is well founded that the literature of those long dead can still be meaningfully read, it is reasonable to apply a similar logic to other forms of separation and to allow ourselves access not just to the mundane and the pragmatic, but to the subtle and the profound.

A more common, but in the end similarly erroneous, approach is to assume (almost always without discussion) that there are no difficulties which a healthy pragmatism will not resolve. Found in both scholarly and lay circles, this attitude characterises those who, while accepting that translation is imperfect and that nuances are lost, believe that the principal essence is preserved and that we can gain assured access to the author's intended meaning, given professional competence on the part of the translator. Unfortunately, while having the appearance of a judicious working basis, this too turns out on closer examination to be seriously flawed.

The reasons lie at the heart of what this book is concerned with: the uncertainty of meaning in all but the simplest of literary texts, and the self-destruction of the notion of ‘authorial intention’. The former results from the realisation that the kinds of texts we are dealing with, dense as they are with metaphor and other linguistic tropes, do not refer to simple facts or to notions of merely superficial character, and so the idea of the competent translator requires not just knowledge of the Hebrew word for ‘heart’, for example, but some sensitivity to the way in which that word functions in Hebrew metaphorical usage.³ Such sensitivity cannot be communicated lexicographically; it is developed bit by bit, through what could be described as a process of continuous feedback involving both the individual translator, the corpus of the language under scrutiny, the larger tradition of translation, and the contemporary societies of those carrying out the work of translation. But even given the sensitive application of the skills thus indicated, the ‘meaning’ eventually constructed remains exactly that: a construct which is in no way to be identified with the Hebrew original. Whatever we, in the late twentieth century, think or imagine we are doing when we scan a page of the Psalms in English, we are absolutely not sharing an experience with pious (or, for that matter, impious) Jews of 2,000 and more years ago.

If meaning is uncertain, the author is a wraith vanishing in an autumn mist. It may be a matter of sorrow that we have to dismiss as the purest fantasy those affecting pen pictures of David composing Psalm 51 in a spirit of deepest repentance at having sinned in the matter of Bathsheba. We may regret the loss of the poet-king of Israel whose personal life is touchingly represented in Psalm 23. But dismiss them, lose them, we must. For there is, let it be clearly stated, not the slightest shred of evidence that would justify our believing we are in touch with the mind or minds of the author or authors of these hymns, laments, liturgies and processionals which have found their way into the Psalter. When the dust of the debate over postmodernism has settled, one ineluctable reality will remain: the meaning of a text cannot depend absolutely upon its author's intention. Not only is this a consequence of our not knowing what authors did in fact intend; it is indicated by the realisation that even if an author had left us a statement of what he or she intended in a particular passage, that statement would itself be problematic. It might be (probably would be) opaque; it might be accidentally misleading; it might be mischievously misleading. (Imagine, if you will, Anthony Burgess leaving us in his will directions for the interpretation of A Clockwork Orange!) And, in any case, why should it be authoritative? It is not for nothing that both stage and screen directors prefer to keep authors (especially living ones) at a distance. They tend to interfere with the reading. Our case is perhaps simpler, since in all but the rarest of cases in the Jewish Bible we have no idea who the author may have been, and in any case cannot interrogate those whose names we have. It follows that we must firmly reject the notion that the author's intention is the principal or only means of recovering the meaning of the text, for most of those readings which claim such authority are circular. The ‘author’ is inferred from his or her supposed writings, is attributed an authorial ‘character’ on the basis of these inferences (together, it must be said, with a good seasoning of imaginary biography), and the resulting pleasing fiction is then brought to bear in support of further interpretations.⁴

We thus find that the pragmatic approach fails for (ironically) the pragmatic reason that its ambitions are, for practical purposes, impossible to fulfil. It is important to register, however, that we have not foreclosed on the question of access. To say that it is not possible to achieve a generally acceptable translation by the use of accessible and transparent skills is not the last word. For what we confront is a body of literature which, while remaining closed to us in important ways, is nonetheless susceptible to the application of a variety of readerly techniques (including translation!), each less than adequate, some incompatible with others, but all in different ways allowing the reader a window into the text, casting a partial light on its pages. At one level this is not a controversial observation. Those who read the Psalms today, whether in translation or by using their acquired knowledge of Hebrew together with a standard edition, have a variety of reasons for doing so. A survey of some of these reasons will help to clarify the processes involved.

Patterns of worship

Some may belong to a religious tradition which integrates the Psalms into its own patterns of worship. The Scots’ Reformed Kirk, with this in mind, produced the Metrical Psalms, a remarkable and original rendering, but no more authentic as a translation than is Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of its Persian original. The comparison drawn here is intended to be apt, not pejorative: both works have a justly celebrated place as cultural products of the English language, and the success of both is due not least to their freedom (I am almost tempted to write ‘cavalier attitude’) with respect to the originals, whose relationship to the end-product is much more that of inspiration than of control. The Gelineau Psalms (1965), a fresh translation set to modern chants, and the use of the King James Version with traditional Anglican chants, equally reflect a creative borrowing which successfully transposes (but does not translate) the Psalms from one medium to another.

There is no intention to deny the legitimacy of such transpositions; indeed, in one sense at least they are truer to the originals than many literary or theological interpretations, for there is little doubt that where psalms were used in worship⁵ they were accompanied by music and by musical instruments. Several titles indicate this, and though the titles are certainly later additions, they undoubtedly reflect ancient practice. Thus, for example, Psalm 6: ‘To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments; according to The Sheminith’. The mysterious final phrase (and others like it at the head of other Psalms) is usually taken to refer to the name of a particular chant or musical motif. Within some psalms we find references to performance involving musical instruments and dance—and in the case of Psalm 150 the ancient equivalent of a symphony orchestra appears to be indicated!⁶ In 1 Chronicles 15:16–24 David's instructions to the Levites to provide musical accompaniment for a procession of the Ark are reported, while permanent arrangements for temple worship are given in 1 Chronicles 25. Recently at least two serious attempts have been made on the basis of musicological interpretations of the accent marks found in Hebrew texts from the sixth century CE and later to recover the chants which are presumed to have been sung in the post-exilic temple.⁷

Historical criticism

Perhaps the most familiar of modern approaches to Psalms study is that of historical criticism, by which is meant the process of asking —and seeking answers to—a whole range of broadly speaking historical questions. When were the Psalms written, and by whom? To what social or cultural context do they belong? Can they be related to known historical events, or to events which can be plausibly reconstructed? What is the status of the various introductory headings found attached to many, though not all, Psalms? Does the division into five Books, and the overall order, have any historical significance?⁸

Attempts to answer these and similar questions have generated a huge literature. What they all share is the characteristic of being external to the text itself. The answers, should they be forthcoming, will not enable us to interpret any particular psalm; though they might provide contextual material which will shape a particular reading. Thus if (as is commonly held) Psalm 74 was composed in the light of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, certain features of the text can be appropriately interpreted. But such historically constrained readings do not necessarily exhaust meaning, and can stifle interpretation by consigning such psalms to the category of historical curiosities. Moreover, it is rare indeed for anything like a plausible historical setting to be available; if we were to confine our readings to those informed by history we would have remarkably little to say.

It is not the purpose of this study to engage in more than a passing way with the historical approach; though it will form one stage of interpretation in the formal process set out in Chapter 5. Since most commentaries survey the historical proposals more or less thoroughly, it will be sufficient to leave the reader to consult the various commentaries with a view to gleaning any useful background of a historical nature. An annotated selection of the main commentaries is provided in section 1 of the bibliography.

Literary criticism

In the field of biblical studies it is common to refer to a set of approaches, which in other disciplines would be regarded as broadly historical, by the title literary criticism. This convention is somewhat confusing, since outside the field literary criticism has a rather different meaning. What is indicated in fact is a concern with three rather specific techniques which emerged largely in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in response to the particular character of the Jewish Bible. They are: the study of form and genre; the study of sources; and the study of the editorial process (redaction criticism) or the history of t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part I Theory and Practice
• Part II Application Select psalms
• Part III Yahweh Comes Home to Zion: The Psalms of Ascents (120–34)
• Notes
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index of Biblical Citations