The Role of Context in the Study of the Psalms

Abstract

The Gunkelian mode of form-critical research exerted massive influence over the last century of Psalms scholarship. In Gunkel’s articulation of the approach, psalms were studied in the context of their genre types in an ultimate bid to locate their Sitz im Leben in ancient Israel. The ancient, historical context of psalms was thus prioritized in Gunkel’s method. Recent decades have seen a number of burgeoning approaches to the Psalms that prioritize other contexts, such as the reception-historical, canonical, or scribal/material contexts of psalms or the Masoretic Psalter. Six major approaches to the Psalms in recent scholarship are surveyed in this article: form-critical, iconographic, canonical, reception-historical, theological, and compositional/redactional. Special attention is paid to the various contexts these approaches prioritize. The article concludes with brief reflections on the significance of the context(s) scholars favor in their studies of the Psalms.