Creation to New Creation: Psalms and the Wisdom Books

Sep 11, 2023 - Nov 13, 2023, Mondays, 6:30 - 8:30pm, at The Emmaus Institute, Ste 23

Instructor

Chad Steiner

Instructor

Vern Steiner

Creation to New Creation: Psalms and the Wisdom Books — Studying Wisdom with *Qohelet* (the “Assembler”)

At the heart of our course offerings is a book-by-book journey through the entire Bible, from Creation to New Creation—Genesis to Revelation. This signature stream of courses is designed to familiarize students with the overarching structure and message of the whole Bible and with the part each book plays in the unfolding drama. This present course will feature seven books at the heart of the Old Testament.

The Psalms and Wisdom books describe the path of life for God’s people, enabling them to live as members of the covenant in anticipation of the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom plans and purposes. They provide songs and prayers and guidance for life “on the way,” including its high mountaintops of praise, its low valleys of pain, and its perplexing mysteries in the daily realities of every kind.

Within this collection, the Psalter stands apart as the book of prayer and praise for God’s people. This peerless gift continues to shape profoundly the ecclesial and personal devotional practices of the citizens of the Kingdom.

Perhaps less familiar, the Wisdom books respond to a variety of questions raised in life and in the preceding canonical books: Where can God’s wisdom be found? Which action is wisest in a given situation? What happens to the community of God’s people when they and their leaders follow—or refuse to follow—the path of wisdom? Most famously, the story of Job’s great personal suffering raises another question: Is it wisdom to worship God when he does not seem to be concerned with making an unjust situation right? Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach follow, each with its distinctive contribution to the Bible’s vision of what God’s people are called to be and how they are best to live in God’s sometimes mysterious world.

This course presents an opportunity to ponder the manifold riches contained in this exquisite portion of Sacred Scripture, including the ways in which they direct our gaze toward the One whose heavenly influence shapes their vision of a promised Davidic Son-King, and his own eventual incarnation as the man of perfect wisdom.

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Comments (Add your own)

All,

I realize it’s only hours before class tonight, but over the next couple of weeks (as we move from Job into Psalms), Dr. Jamie Grant’s lectures on how we should understand the biblical development of ‘lament’ will be helpful:

Here’s the ~30min video I mentioned last week:

The Functional Atheism of Lamentless Spirituality

And here’s the [longer ~1h27min] third session of a three-part series of lectures he did for a Protestant Church up near the Hebrides on the Psalms:

Session 3: Psalms of Lament

Chad, may God reward you for last night’s class on Job; what a gift!

I’ve been reflecting more about lamentation and why it should be so pleasing to God. It seems to me that God desires union with the whole person, not just with the “nice parts”, we could say, or the more presentable parts, but the whole humanity with its emotions and imagination and memories. I recently heard a talk where the presenter was saying, “God is big enough to handle our complaints and our anger.”

I know I paraphrased this quote when we were speaking but I wanted to share it exactly.
“Jacob is the first person in the Bible who reveals the full spectrum of human emotions ranging from love to anger. Jacob is a real human being. If he feels something, he expresses his feelings. He sees Rachel, loves her and expresses his emotions. This is an example of a truthful person as defined by the Talmud: ‘What is outside is what is inside.’”

Here is the link to the video we watched at the end of class last evening, in which Fr. James Brent, O.P., explains the significance of the theology behind the phrase we often say casually when facing some trial: “Well, offer it up.”

All,

For those who would like to take a deeper dive into Ecclesiastes, here are the two lectures (each about an hour) and homily (about twenty minutes), presented by Professor Christopher Seitz (Wycliffe College, University of Toronto) at Beeson Divinity School in March 2021, to which I referred last evening.

Lecture 1: “Wither Wisdom: The Once and Future Fate of Wisdom Literature”
Homily on Ecclesiastes 12: “The Preacher Says Goodbye”
Lecture 2: “Koheleth’s Solomonic Meditation”

Please do watch especially the lectures if you are able, and of these, especially the second (i.e., the third video linked above) will overlap most clearly with our study last night.

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