"On the Book of Psalms"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how, although written by a Hebrew scholar, "On the Book of Psalms" contains undeniable parallels that many Christian and Jewish readers will draw into their own personal beliefs in their introspective journey. It looks at how the author points out that Sarna is greatly dismayed by what he sees as the devaluation of prayer in modern day society because the descendants of David, the King to whom the psalms are attributed, today barely know how to pray. The paper concludes that the psalmist stands firm in his conviction that God's judgment upon Earth will restore moral order and set things right for all the days to come. The ultimate messages is that in the end, good will triumph over evil.

From the Paper:

"The philosophical intonation of Psalm Eight and its' acknowledgment of God as creator and ruler over all, is not left to settle there by the author. Through his extrapolation of this psalm, I found myself once again in analogous thought. Sarna makes it quite clear that concepts such as "Nature" and "Cosmology" are diametrically opposed to Israelite monotheism. Any attempt to attribute universal origin and order to either nature or the cosmos was deemed to be polytheistic. The Egyptian "Book of The Dead" is cited as doing just that, through its' description of the Sun God creating all the other gods. Sarna makes no attempt to hide the fact that he feels this book to be paganistic and mythological."

More papers on "On the Book of Psalms":

• Term Paper # 133082 : "The Book of Psalms"
• Term Paper # 103673 : "Messianic Psalms"
• Book Review # 145341 : "Messiah and the Old Testament"

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