Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

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Secret Alias
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

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My point would be that the Pentateuch clearly sets forth the coming of one who is like Moses. The gematria (= Shiloh), Deuteronomy 18:15 etc. has a mystical quality to it and it is a deliberate mystical quality (most likely Ezra or whomever wrote the Pentateuch meaning Moses to be a self-reference or foreshadowing). But the Psalms don't seem (from the modern critical historical POV) to share in that intent. I am not arguing how texts were used in antiquity. I am speaking in the manner of Porphyry who said that Daniel was about contemporary events. The way the Psalms are used by Christians in particular (Christians in the first or second century) doesn't seem to be rooted in a realistic understanding of what the author intended or how the text was used originally in Jewish culture.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by John2 »

The way the Psalms are used by Christians in particular (Christians in the first or second century) doesn't seem to be rooted in a realistic understanding of what the author intended or how the text was used originally in Jewish culture.
I couldn't agree more. I would only add that post-OT Jews appear to do this too.
Last edited by John2 on Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by neilgodfrey »

John2 wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:56 pm And Subramanian notes that:
The book of Psalms is represented [among the DSS] more than any other biblical book (36 copies), followed by Deuteronomy (29) and Isaiah (21). The large number of psalm manuscripts found at Qumran seems to suggest that the Qumran community used the Psalms for a variety of purposes: 'for worship, meditation, and proof texting' ... Here I will discuss psalm quotations that are explicitly used to interpret the life of the community, its beliefs and the events of the last days.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KgbUA ... cy&f=false
Reading through the following pages of that work I believe we are seeing further elaboration of the point I have been suggesting. For example, he notes that the "Qumran community" interpreted Deut 33 and 2 Sam 7 as "prophetic" references to themselves. They saw themselves as the "true Israel" or the "true temple", so the Scriptures were in fact "fore-shadows" ("prophecies") of their own community. This is the allegorical method in other words.

The Scriptures (2 Sam 7) don't say "David's temple will be fulfilled in reality so many centuries hence". There is no "prophecy" as we commonly understand the term.

Scriptures were regularly interpreted as material and shadowy prefigurings that pointed to "the true Israel" or "true people of God" (the later readers/interpreters).

All scripture could be interpreted as "prophecy" in that sense. Not just the bits like Daniel 11.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

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John2 wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:45 pm
The way the Psalms are used by Christians in particular (Christians in the first or second century) doesn't seem to be rooted in a realistic understanding of what the author intended or how the text was used originally in Jewish culture.
I couldn't agree more. I would only add that post-OT Jews appear to do this too.
Actually "kooky books" disagree and point to the NT and DSS interpretations of scriptures as following the tradition of all prior canonical and extra canonical literature. Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas L. Thompson, for example, demonstrate the way scriptural stories are regularly recycled, rewritten, for new situations.

Each generation might see itself as "the real Israel" and regularly interpret the narratives of the "old Israel" for their guidance. They saw themselves in the scriptures that they read and imbued the scriptures with allegorical interpretations to refer more meaningfully or "spiritually" to themselves.

That was the nature of "prophecy" more generally understood.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by John2 »

Subramanian also cites Schiffman on page 33 regarding the DSS using the Psalms out of context.
In pesher interpretation, on the one hand, the original historical context is nonexistent. Habakkuk or the Psalms are understood as applying in their original sense to the time of the sect and foretelling its history. Indeed, in that sense, pesher shares a common element which much of the quotation and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible found in the New Testament.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by neilgodfrey »

John2 wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:03 pm Subramanian also cites Schiffman on page 33 regarding the DSS using the Psalms out of context.
In pesher interpretation, on the one hand, the original historical context is nonexistent. Habakkuk or the Psalms are understood as applying in their original sense to the time of the sect and foretelling its history. Indeed, in that sense, pesher shares a common element which much of the quotation and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible found in the New Testament.
No disagreement. I thought the question was "why" they think the psalms or other scriptures to be prophetic. I've attempted to point out what is widely understood in the literature as the answer to this question.

Your quotation rightly tells us that they did interpret passages "prophetically". I have attempted to explain how or why they did so.

Some of the confusion arises over a narrow understanding of what was meant by our term "prophetic".
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by neilgodfrey »

The book you cite points out that Psalm 1:1 was interpreted as a prophecy of the "Qumran sect". That's because they interpreted all scripture allegorically, as really written for "the true Israel", themselves. That was the nature of "prophecy" in that case, and in very many if not most other cases, too.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

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In other words, all Scripture was read mantically. It was the same approach to reading a sacrificed pig's liver. Every mark and line, every word and letter, could be divined to mean something of spiritual significance by "the wise". Something of significance could be anything from the past, or advice for the present, or some sign for a future event. Some confined themselves to allegorical readings (e.g. Philo), others went into more complex divinations through midrashic techniques.

Lots of believers continue to read it with the same mindset, though their techniques might differ.
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by John2 »

Neil,

The "why" is a good question, and I suppose my only answer would be what Josephus says about the OT in Against Apion.
It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.


This gives me the impression that Josephus saw the Psalms as having been written by prophets, since he says just before this in his list of OT books that they include "hymns to God."
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Re: Why Do Christians Think the Psalms Are Prophetic?

Post by neilgodfrey »

I'm not sure if you are disagreeing with anything I've said since you seem not to be addressing my comments. I don't see how the passages you quote contradict anything I said -- I think they actually support my point.

I alluded to my earlier discussion of the same words of Josephus earlier in this thread: viewtopic.php?p=17466#p17466

I am not denying prophetic interpretation, in case that's what you're thinking. I'm was (apparently ineptly) trying to point out how our concept of "prophetic" is much narrower than what we are looking at with the way Josephus, "Qumran community", Paul, Matthew, read prophetic significance into the scriptures.

Josephus's passage is all of a piece with Homer's claiming "prophetic/oracular" inspiration of the past events via the Muses.
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