JONATHAN EDWARDS AND THE PSALMS
A Redemptive-Historical Vision of Scripture
By David P. Barshinger
Oxford University Press. 470 pages. £47.99
ISBN 978 0 199 396 757
Taken together, the title and subtitle are liable to be misleading.
This is not Jonathan Edwards’s demonstration from the Book of Psalms that the message of Scripture unfolds progressively through the sweep of redemptive history. Nor is it, except for a small fraction of the book, Edwards’s doctrine of Scripture as derived from data in the Psalms. Rather, it is a church historian’s attempt to put the record straight on the kind of theologian Edwards was. Author David Barshinger is persuaded that scholars have placed excessive emphasis on Edwards the philosopher, Edwards the systematic theologian and Edwards the revivalist. Setting out to change the ‘distorted portrait of Edwards [that] remains the reigning image in scholarship today’ (p.3), Barshinger highlights the credit that should be given to ‘America’s theologian’ for his proficiency as an exegete. To this end, he turns to Edwards’s handling of the Psalms, since this is the Bible book that Edwards cited more than any other and (Matthew’s Gospel aside) preached on more than any other (108 extant sermons).
