Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 25:3 (Fall 2021)
Article: Did The New Testament Authors Read The Psalter As A Book?
Author: James M. Hamilton, Jr.

SBJT 25:3 (Fall 2021) p. 9

Did The New Testament Authors Read The Psalter As A Book?

James M. Hamilton, Jr.

James M. Hamilton, Jr. is Professor of Biblical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church at Victory Memorial, both in Louisville, Kentucky, where he lives with his wife and their five children. In addition to his biblical theology, God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment (Crossway, 2010), Dr. Hamilton has recently published a two volume work on Psalms (EBTC, Lexham, 2021) and Typology—Understanding the Bible’s Promise-Shaped Patterns (Zondervan Academic, 2022). With Alex Duke and Sam Emadi, he is also part of the BibleTalk podcast team.

Gerald Wilson usually receives credit for jumpstarting the modern discussion of the Psalter as a Book.1 In the wake of Wilson, scholars have begun to notice that approaching the Psalter as a unified whole was not unheard of prior to Wilson. David Gundersen had drawn my attention to a statement by Augustine showing his interest in the topic,2 and from statements made by Gregory of Nyssa, we can see that he too sought to read the Psalms in light of their order and arrangement in the Psalter.3 Steffen Jenkins has recently demonstrated “The Antiquity of Psalter Shape Efforts.”4 David Mitchell and Adam Hensley have likewise pointed to evidence that the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the early church fathers, and the rabbis understood the Psalter as a purposefully shaped collection.5 This essay seeks to contribute to the discussion by answering the question posed in its title: is there evidence in the New Testament (NT) that its authors read the Psalter as a book?

Biblical theology is the attempt to understand and embrace the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors.6 Among other things, this means that if the NT authors read the Psalter as a book, those attempting to do biblical

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theology would want to imitate them in that practice.

We begin with a brief summary of evidence for the idea that the Psalter was intended by its authors and compilers to be read as a book. From there we will briefly consider indications that the whole of the Old Testament (OT) was intended and received as a book, before looking at NT evidence that the Psalter was read as a unified book with a coherent message.

The Psalter As A Book