Customer Reviews

Psalms I, 1-50 (Anchor Bible Series, Vol. 16)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This three volume commentary on the book of Psalms is in many ways the culmination of a lifetime of study in Semitic philology by one of the 20th century's most gifted and original semitists. However, Dahood's originality often took a commanding role over and against his training as a philologist. The commentary is essentially philological, and is of rather limited interest to the non-scholar; there are several other Psalms commentaries that would prove far more usefull to the interested non-scholar (Hans-Joachin Kraus's three volumes on the Psalms ["Theology of the Psalms", "Psalms 1-50", and "Psalms 51-150" published by Fortress Press] come to mind as a thoroughly academic, yet far more useful and usable commentary). In addition to Dahood focusing on nitty-gritty details of Northwest Semitic linguistics, there is the lamentable fact that he all too often grossly overstates the case of comparative linguistic data, and simply offers wholely implausible readings of biblical texts. One cannot help but think of Dahood's unfortunate publication of a text from the ancient city of Ebla, in which he claimed that it was a direct parallel to a passage in the book of Proverbs; as it turns out, the text in question was a butcher's list of different cuts of meat.

The material in this commentary is of interst to professional students of the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew language, and Semitic philology--all too often as a warning of what NOT to do. As a commentary of use to the layman, it should be avoided. The forthcoming commentary of Kselman should be a most welcome addition to Psalms scholarship.

I would like to temper Olaf01 statements about Dahood's well known work. Dahood does work deeply into Semetic philology, and while this may bog down the non-academics, he offers an incredible wealth of wisdom from this perspective. Often I was simply struck by the depth of his variant translations and readings of individual Psalms. For me, this is a strong resource to use along side of many other quality texts as mentioned by Olaf01. Dahood's takes some great risks opening himself up for brilliance or criticism. Either way, it makes for exciting and insightful comparisons among the other seminal texts.