By conceptualizing the 'Book' of Psalms as an anthology, and by inquiring into its poetics by means of paratextuality, David Willgren provides a fresh reconstruction of its formation and concludes that it preserves a selection of psalms that is best seen not as a book of psalms, but as a canon of psalms.
This work was awarded with SEK 50.000 by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities as a "" (förtjänt vetenskapligt arbete).
In this study, David Willgren attempts to provide answers to two fundamental questions in relation to the formation of the 'Book' of Psalms: "how?" and "why?". The first relates to the diachronic growth of the collection (how are these processes to be reconstructed, and on what grounds?), while the second relates to questions of purpose (to what end are psalms being juxtaposed in a collection?).
By conceptualizing the 'Book' of Psalms as an anthology, and by inquiring into its poetics by means of paratextuality, David Willgren provides a fresh reconstruction of the formation of the 'Book' of Psalms and concludes, in contrast to the canonical approach, that it does not primarily provide a literary context for individual psalms. Rather, it preserves a dynamic selection of psalms that is best seen not as a book of psalms, but as a canon of psalms.
This work was awarded with SEK 50.000 by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities as a "" (förtjänt vetenskapligt arbete).
David Willgren
Geboren 1983; Studium der Theologie an der Örebro School of Theology; 2016 Promotion in Lund; seit 2019 Lecturer an der Akademi för Ledarskap och Teologi und der Örebro School of Theology; seit 2019 Postdoktorand an der Umeå University.Born 1983; studied Theology at Örebro School of Theology; 2016 PhD; since 2016 associate professor/senior lecturer in Biblical Studies at the Academy of Leadership and Theology and Norwegian School of Leadership and Theology; since 2020 Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa; 2019-21 Post-doc at Umeå University.
Psalter Paratexts Scribal Culture Dead Sea Scrolls Psalms Scrolls