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Rebecca W Poe Hays, The Storied Ethics of the Thanksgiving Psalms. By Joshua T. James, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 70, Issue 2, October 2019, Pages 752–754, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flz042
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Extract
In this study (a revision of his 2015 Fuller Theological Seminary dissertation), Joshua James gives attention to a previously under-explored aspect of the Psalter’s ethical content: namely, ‘the ethical value of story and storytelling in Israel’s thanksgiving psalms’ (p. 3). This study involves not only a theological consideration of how narrative functions, but also an argument for the ethical implications of the genre of thanksgiving psalms. James contends that the ‘storied retellings’ of crisis, call, and deliverance that define the thanksgiving psalm genre establish a critical framework for the ethos of the worshipping community. Through liturgical usage and storied world-creating, this genre establishes the character of Yahweh, which in turn shapes the characters and behaviours of those who worship Yahweh.
After a very brief introductory chapter that qualifies the nature of his project (i.e. he is not making an argument about what kind of ethical formation actually happened in the worshipping community through thanksgiving) (pp. 1–8), James begins his study proper with a discussion of narrative ethics and the hermeneutical benefits of approaching the thanksgiving psalms through this lens (pp. 9–38). The foundational assumption of a narrative ethical approach is that stories have the power to shape the identities and characters of their audiences. James draws upon the work of philosophers and theologians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, and James Gustafson to establish the ethical implications of narrative. Additionally, he briefly surveys how biblical scholars have explored these implications in the Hebrew Bible broadly (e.g. William Brown, John Goldingay, John Barton) and—rarely—in the Psalter particularly (e.g. Gordon Wenham, Phillip McMillon). At the end of this chapter, James turns to a close reading of Psalm 30 to illustrate how the stories in thanksgiving psalms function in terms of ethical formation. While the psalm does not include explicit ethical instruction (‘do this’, ‘don’t do this’), its narrative does construct an ethos: it communicates the characters of Yahweh and Yahweh’s worshippers, and it creates a vision of the world in which the experience narrated in the psalm can be applied as a frame of reference for worshippers seeking to understand their own experiences and their own selves.
