PRAYING THE PSALMS
Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
By Walter Brueggemann. Paternoster. 98 pages. £9.75
ISBN 978-1-84227-552-8
The author, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, USA, writes more as an academic theologian than as a pastor. He addresses primarily the function of language in the use of the Psalms and the Christian use of poetry which, he suggests, is Jewish.
Two quotes illustrate the thrust of the book. ‘Praying the Psalms depends upon two things: (1) what we find when we come to the Psalms that is already there; and (2) what we bring to the Psalms out of our own lives.’ ‘The Psalter knows that life is dislocated.
