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" Sacred Poems, Moral Logic: Alphabetic Acrostic Psalms and the Impetus to Look for Something More "
Holbrook, Grant Hunter
Balentine, Samuel
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1054224
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TL53341
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| Main Entry
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Holbrook, Grant Hunter
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| Title & Author
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Sacred Poems, Moral Logic: Alphabetic Acrostic Psalms and the Impetus to Look for Something More\ Holbrook, Grant HunterBalentine, Samuel
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| College
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Union Presbyterian Seminary
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| Date
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2020
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| Note
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284 p.
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| Abstract
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The central contention of the dissertation is that the Hebrew acrostic Psalms express moral language as ancient, sacred, poetry through the medium of written, lineated prayers. The script-centered, acrostic structure goads all parties involved—both human and divine—to look again. The work considers anew the purposes of organizing eight Psalms according to the Hebrew alphabet. This grows out of the field HB ethics, inspired by John Barton, along with interdisciplinary encounters with two kinds of philosophical interests: Assyriologists and metaethicists. From Assyriology come the philosophical concerns of text’s relation to representing reality, foremost from historian Marc Van De Mieroop. Cuneiform acrographic lists and acrostic prayers provide the primary comparative texts for these Assyriological concerns. From the tradition of metaethics, the key interlocutor is Daniel Boisvert, who develops an approach to moral language called “Expressive Assertivism. Boisvert’s system provides the primary lens for considering the ancient, poetic, and sacred nature of Hebrew Bible psalms. Culminating in an extended treatment of Psalms 111 and 112, the dissertation explores how the psalmist describes both God and the human supplicant in terms of moral acts and attributes. In sum, this dissertation cuts two intersecting paths for future scholarship that may be run together or be utilized separately. Motivated by the concerns of Hebrew Bible ethics, Chapters 2–3 present an ancient, literary means of exploring logic in the context of written order; Chapter 4 utilizes contemporary, philosophical means in order to explore these ancient literary conclusions, ultimately probing the significance of speaking moral words amidst things, ideas, and people, which are all themselves a strange mix of the moral, non-moral, amoral, or otherwise. The dissertation is a sustained effort to see how the authors of ancient sacred poetry, viz., the acrostic psalms, express and describe moral concerns in light of the details of their language and theological commitment to reality.
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Biblical studies
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Ethics
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Balentine, Samuel
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Union Presbyterian Seminary
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