Susan Gillingham - Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3

Volume Three was begun in employment and completed in retirement. In 2018 Worcester College and the Faculty of Theology and Religion together granted me one essential, final sabbatical. I owe a huge debt to Peter Groves for having taken on administrative and tutorial responsibilities in my absence: Peter’s insights at the academic level have provided a vital support throughout the entire project. I am also grateful for the use of the Bartlett Sisters’ Theology Fund, supported mainly by alumni from Worcester College, for this has paid for much of my research assistance. Various College Officers and Fellows at Worcester played a major part in launching this third volume: for all their practical support in so many ways my thanks extend to Afifi Al-Akiti, Mark Bainbridge, Coleen Day, Scott Scullion, Elizabeth Smith, Emma Standhaft, Carmy Strzelecki, and Phillipa Tarver.

Post retirement I have been dependent for ongoing funding from the trustees of the St. Luke’s College Foundation, Exeter. David Benzie and his trustees provided for the costs of the permissions and the production of images, and then also for payment of the indexing and other research assistance costs. Their continual support throughout this entire project has been vital.

Academic colleagues in the Faculty of Theology and Religion here at Oxford have provided much specialist advice. Above all I have valued the support of John Barton—mentor, colleague, and friend of over forty years. Other Faculty members who have also given this project their support in different ways include Hywel Clifford, John Day, John Goldingay, John Jarick, Justin Jones, Laura Quick, Frances Roach, Deborah Rooke, Katherine Southwood, and Jenn Strawbridge. Outside my Faculty Matthew Cheung-Salisbury has been a continuous source of encouragement: his unfailing patience has vastly improved my account of the musical and liturgical reception of different psalms. Outside Oxford, Nicolas Bell, Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, has offered me invaluable advice about various illustrated Psalters: the Eadwine Psalter appears many times in this volume and has been used in two of the Plates.

Two Oxford-based research centres have continued to provide new incentives. The Centre for the Reception History of the Bible has broadened my horizons of what reception is and does, and I am grateful to Chris Joynes, its director, for the opportunity to speak there and to learn from other projects. The Psalms Network which works under the auspices of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (‘TORCH’) has been a major inspiration, not least through working with my co-founders, Francis Leneghan and Helen Appleton, whose expertise in Medieval English Literature as it impinges on the Book of Psalms has taught me much. Together we have produced a wide variety of events concerned with all aspects of the reception of psalmody, some of which have been incorporated here. Other TORCH members who deserve mention are Elizabeth Solopova (Oxford) who helped with my research on illuminated Psalters, and Beatrice Groves (Oxford) who has been a conversation partner on the psalms in Early Modern literature. Other members have freely allowed their own work to be used in this book: Roger Wagner (Oxford) and Michael Jessing (Peebles) have produced some of the artwork; David Mitchell (Brussels) has produced musical scores intuiting ancient psalmody; Alexander Massey (Oxford) has made invaluable contributions on Jewish psalmody; and Edward Clarke (Oxford) has offered several of his poems. Howard Goodall’s memorable performance and explanation of his own psalm compositions through the auspices of TORCH made me work on the relevant psalms in a new way, and Andy Mackay (Roxy music), also associated with TORCH, prompted me to study the reception history of other psalms in a different context, namely for his performance ‘3 Psalms’ at Southbank.

My membership of two societies has also been invaluable in this long-term project. The Society for Old Testament Study, for which I served as President from 2018 to 2019, has been an important resource in bringing together colleagues with distinctive sorts of expertise; they include James Aitken (Cambridge), Margaret Barker (Borrowash), Richard Briggs (Durham), David Clines (Sheffield), Katharine Dell (Cambridge), Graham Davies (Cambridge), David Firth (Bristol), Bill Goodman (Sheffield), Charlotte Hempel (Birmingham), Alastair Hunter (Glasgow), Philip Johnston (Cambridge), Paul Joyce (London), Shioban Dowling-Long (Cork), Heather McKay (Edge Hill), Jonathan Magonet (London), Sean Maher (Carlow), James Patrick (Oxford), Cat Quine (Nottingham), David Reimer (Edinburgh), David Shepherd (Dublin), Rebecca Watson (Market Harborough), Jenni Williams (Oxford), Hugh Williamson (Oxford) and Paul Winchester (Oxford). The Psalms Section of the Society for Biblical Literature has also been an ongoing resource: I am grateful for the support of Karl Jacobson (Minneapolis), Rolf Jacobson (Minnesota), Chris Jones (Jefferson City), Joel LeMon (Atlanta), and Brent Strawn (Durham, NC), and most especially Melody Knowles (Alexandria).

The legacies of †Erich Zenger, †Klaus Seybold, †Peter Flint, and †Frank-Lothar Hossfeld have been considerable, as my footnotes amply testify. Between the publication of Volume Two and Volume Three I have participated in various psalms projects globally, some in memoriam of these extraordinary colleagues, and hearing and giving papers and producing articles have offered me further insights in writing up the commentary. Colleagues who have been especially important include Johannes Bremer (Bochum), Alma Brodersen (Bern), Susan Docherty (Birmingham), Christian Frevel (Bochum), Erhard Gerstenberger (Marburg), Friedhelm Hartenstein (München), Bernd Janowski (Tübingen), Corinna Körting (Hamburg), Beate Kowalski (Dortmund), Dominik Markl (Rome), Nancy Rahn (Bern), Jonathan Schnocks (Münster), Till Steiner (Jerusalem), Åke Viberg (Stockholm), Beat Weber (Liestal), David Willgren (Örebro), and Alexandra Grund-Wittenberg (Marburg). My greatest debt, however, is to Hermann Spieckermann (Göttingen) for his insights, friendship, good humour, and continuous support. Collaborative work with American colleagues especially through the Society of Biblical Literature has also been important over these years, especially with Debra Band (Washington DC), Bill Bellinger (Baylor), Joseph Blenkinsopp (Notre Dame), William Brown (Columbia), Walter Brueggemann (Decatur), Dennis Tucker (Baylor), Clinton McCann (Saint Louis), Jamie McClung (Georgia), and Nancy deClaissé-Walford (Atlanta). I have been associated with Pro-Psalms, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria SA for nearly fifteen years, when I first became a research associate, and I acknowledge the continuing support of Dirk Human, Alphonso Groenewald, and Philip Botha. Finally, in giving named papers for Stefan Attard (Malta), and Giovanni Barbiero (Rome) I have gained invaluable insights from their advice and friendship.

Retirement meant a slight shift from academic community to church, not least because of my ordination to the Permanent Diaconate in 2018. Reception history is very much about performance as well as a written script, and the congregation at St. Barnabas’ Church have received, especially through Zoom during Lockdown, more papers on the Psalms than they probably would have chosen, but their support through conversations in the church and pub has been immeasurable. I am enormously grateful to Fr. Christopher Woods, who has trained me as a Deacon whilst understanding that I needed much time and space for academic work. In these latter stages he has been an exceptionally supportive colleague and friend. At the Diocesan level, +Steven, Bishop of Oxford, also the holder of a doctorate in the psalms, has been a seminal influence in challenging me to view the reception history of psalmody in a contemporary setting, especially during Lockdown. The community of Benedictines at Mucknell Abbey has been an important reminder of psalmody and the Opus Dei . I have also given several papers on the psalms before and during the Covid-19 pandemic at Exeter Cathedral, where I am Canon Theologian, and equally significant have been conversations with +Robert, Bishop of Exeter, Jonathan and Pamela Greener, Christopher Palmer, Morwenna Ludlow, and Clare Bryden.