The Hunt for Ancient Israel - Essays in Honour of Diana V. Edelman - Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Praying History: Taking a Joyful Leap of Trust
The Hunt for Ancient Israel - Essays in Honour of Diana V. Edelman - Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher [+]
Catholic Private University of Linz, Austria
Description
When Ps 105 and 106 remember history, they do so in different ways. Not only do they recall different episodes from the past, focus on the role of God or the people, emphasis different theological themes, but they also highlight different emotions connected with the retold events. In this way, they also evoke different emotions in the readers. This paper focusses on the emotional dimension of Ps 105 and 106. Following the argumentation of these psalms, it describes the explicitly mentioned emotions, the emotional evaluations of the remembered events and it points out an emotional dynamic that these texts can evoke in their readers. I argue that this emotional process of remembering the past strengthen the persuasive power of these prayers and enables the readers to join in the viewpoint of these psalms.