"Tribal" psalms

One way in dealing them is pretty simple: the Canadian Book of Common Prayer (1962) actually removes the more violent verses from the Psalter! XD Of course our modern BAS (Book of Alternative Services), which is practically of popular use due to its vernacular language, uses the entire thing, it is still slightly difficult for me to deal with them.

What I have been told is that the Psalms, just like most of the Bible, are complex expressions of human beings towards God, in love and hate, in pride and humility. To imagine some invader coming into your home and killing your children right in front of you would be in some sense on the fear of living in a tribal Semitic culture. It was literally by Jehovah's Grace that the ancient Israelites could survive each day without being preyed upon by invaders or the wilderness.

In the Book of Alternative Services, in their introduction to the Psalter, it says:

"The psalms began as the cry of a people in moments of pain and joy. They are an intensely human cry. When Christians use the psalms they do not leave their Christianity behind, but they do not abandon their humanity either. Christians also experience doubt and anger as well as joy and hope and the psalms encourage them to give vent to that darker side of their humanity. To do so is not to fail in faith or love but to recognize that faith and love cannot be claimed as mere palliatives of present pain. Present pain must be owned if life is to be transformed."

Of course, if you can not deal with them, I am sure that you can skip them, or just replace them with a Christian hymn or prayer (Veni Sancte Spiritus, or Anima Christi, etc.). The whole point of the Daily Office or Divine Office is that we pray - especially in the tradition of our antecedents who have found spirituality in sanctifying the entire day to prayer, hymns, Scriptural readings, and interior contemplation in the radical, transforming love that Christ graced us.

I would recommend C.S. Lewis book on the psalms. He addresses a lot of your questions.

I try to pray the whole Psalter monthly within or outside of the DO and this issue came up. The key is to pray not analyze the Psalms. The Psalms contain the full range of human emotion - joy, sorrow, anger, abandonment, penitence. I began to realize that darkness is a part of me too. It may be expressed differently than tribal people but it is there. You may find these darker psalms provide you a prayerful release when you are dealing with less than positive emotions. Do not judge the Psalms for they are what you are. Do not judge. Just pray. Pray the good and the bad and commend all to God.

I think it is best to accept the Psalms for what they are - including the difficult parts. I think it is horrible that anyone would censor them out of, I guess, a misguided desire to be "nice" or "modern".

Doctor Strangelove said:

I think it is best to accept the Psalms for what they are - including the difficult parts. I think it is horrible that anyone would censor them out of, I guess, a misguided desire to be "nice" or "modern".

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I still feel that the Canadian BCP 1962 is pretty conservative... but heck, it's 'technically' the official Prayer Book of Canada!

I agree Doctor. The psalms are very human and they are what they are. We need not deny the darker side of human life or what is the point of the crucifixion?

kern said:

Psalm 136 is a good example, with a structure that has many verses all followed by "his [God's] love endures forever." But a number of the verses involve the Old Testament wars and other events. I just can't feel comfortable saying lines like "[Give thanks] to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, His love endures forever" or "and killed mighty kings, his love endures forever."

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Wait until you hit Psalm 137.

There are a few different answers to your question.

One is that, in the Christian context, these Psalms take on new meaning, in that the enemies described are no longer flesh and blood; but corruption, condemnation, avarice, sloth, apostasy, adverse powers, etc. This "spiritualization" of psalms involving warfare and hatred is a very popular Patristic interpretation.

But I don't think that's enough. The wonders described in Psalm 136 are really considered, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, to be wonders of God: The foundation of the world, the life in all flesh, the movement of the stars, the calling of Israel, the conquest of Israel's enemies. And I think, perhaps, the way to say 'amen' to these things is to understand their purpose.

And that purpose is: The ultimate salvation of the world. That somehow these things were God struggling with people so that eventually a Mary could be born, and Christ could be born from her with a humanity that could be worked with, by which Christ destroyed sin and death and healed humanity and ascended into heaven and comes again in glory.

Then, saying "amen" to these Psalms is to say "amen" to the history of salvation itself, an act of faith and trust.

kern said:

... have a hard time praying some of them (Psalms) because they seem more suited to an ancient-world tribal God than the Christian God.

... I just can't feel comfortable saying lines like "[Give thanks] to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, His love endures forever" or "and killed mighty kings, his love endures forever."

If I were an ancient Isrealite worshipping YHVH as our tribal God then it might make sense to thank him for killing children in order to get us out of slavery, or winning wars for us so that we could occupy our destined land. And it would also be easier to read this as "His love for our tribe endures forever."

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I also have a bit of trouble in this regard - which is fairly amusing, since I lived in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for some 20 years and studied for the Orthodox rabbinate.

I can attest that a number of Orthodox Jews are also troubled by the same concept. You are not alone.

For many years, I prayed the Psalms in the original Hebrew language, and that sort of helped. Sort of, because sometimes I would recognize one of the problematic verses, anyhow, and then I wouldn't be sure whether I wanted to say it or not. Praying in Hebrew did generally give me a sense of distance, though.

This is much more of a problem for me now that I am praying the Psalms in English, my native language.

kern said:

I've always had difficulty with that "plan of salvation" explanation because it seems too abstractly philosophical and ignores the fact that you're talking about real people who were slaughtered, including women and children in some cases. Given that I'm in East Asian Studies, I also wonder how this "plan of salvation" helped the tens of millions of Chinese and Japanese who lived and died without ever hearing about Christ.

And even if you can re-interpret these Psalms in a different way, that doesn't deny that supposedly these are real, historical events being reported, and that when the Bible says God killed a bunch of Egyptians, that's not supposed to be taken as symbolic.

But I suppose this goes beyond the issue of the Psalms in the Daily Office.

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You've made some excellent points. And, no I really don't think this goes beyond the issue of the Psalms in the Daily Office.

Psalm 137 ends with something like, "How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock."

Terrible stuff. I don't even like quoting it for the sake of discussion.

Yes, I am quite troubled, even given my Jewish training.

kern said:

I've always had difficulty with that "plan of salvation" explanation because it seems too abstractly philosophical and ignores the fact that you're talking about real people who were slaughtered, including women and children in some cases.

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I don't think it's abstract. It's coming to terms with the violent and confused history of humanity and God. It is acknowledging that was the way that God worked with what he had, and what he had was us. God isn't a friendship monad, he condescends to interact with us, even functionally withdrawing his omnipotence in some way. The slaying of the Egyptians was a victory for us. We are not computers with cadavers, we are Homo sapiens sapiens. And that's still how we understand the world.

kern said:

Given that I'm in East Asian Studies, I also wonder how this "plan of salvation" helped the tens of millions of Chinese and Japanese who lived and died without ever hearing about Christ.

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Quoted this elsewhere recently; we just had Easter, and this is sung:

"Let the creation rejoice exceedingly, let all those born on earth be glad: for Death, the enemy, has been despoiled. Ye women, come to meet me with sweet spices: for I am delivering Adam and Eve with all their offspring..."

kern said:

And even if you can re-interpret these Psalms in a different way, that doesn't deny that supposedly these are real, historical events being reported, and that when the Bible says God killed a bunch of Egyptians, that's not supposed to be taken as symbolic.

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I agree. I didn't mean pretend that those events were symbolic, I mean what enemies we are referring to when we, as Christians, pray that psalm.

And when it comes to re-interpretation... Well, if you've got a problem with strange re-interpretation, you'll find that Christianity is gonna mess with you a lot.

kern said:

But I suppose this goes beyond the issue of the Psalms in the Daily Office.

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Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Doctor Strangelove said:

I think it is best to accept the Psalms for what they are - including the difficult parts.

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As Cappodocious said, I always tend to interpret those Psalms spiritually.

Episcopalians that have embraced the Psalms from a more Jungian perspective would point out the darker psalm verses give space to the Shadow to speak, the parts of our psyche that isn't nice or socially acceptable. So holiness is not necessarily moving towards being more politically correct, nice, or fuzzy and fluffy, but more whole, integrated and accepting.

FireDragon76 said:

Episcopalians that have embraced the Psalms from a more Jungian perspective would point out the darker psalm verses give space to the Shadow to speak, the parts of our psyche that isn't nice or socially acceptable. So holiness is not necessarily moving towards being more politically correct, nice, or fuzzy and fluffy, but more whole, integrated and accepting.

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Oh, this really helps. Thank you!

Episcopalians that have embraced the Psalms from a more Jungian perspective would point out the darker psalm verses give space to the Shadow to speak, the parts of our psyche that isn't nice or socially acceptable. So holiness is not necessarily moving towards being more politically correct, nice, or fuzzy and fluffy, but more whole, integrated and accepting.

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Interesting....I was not coming from a Jungian perspective in describing my experience praying the psalms, but the explanation you offer is in tune with how I came to perceive the psalms in prayer.