A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity

by AJ Berkovitz

The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible.

A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading.

274 pages, Hardcover

Published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

What role have the psalms played in Jewish life? The answer to that question depends on the time period under discussion. In “A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity” (University of Pennsylvania Press), A. J. Berkovitz, assistant professor of ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, explores the different roles these poems/songs played in Jewish life during late antiquity in what he calls a “literary biography.” His purpose is to tell “the story of how the Hebrew Psalter shaped the Judaism of Late Antiquity and was, in turn, shaped by its Jewish users.”
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[Douglas Fyfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book did everything it set out to do. It was easy to read. Endnotes were the biggest negative - they were highly informative and their displacement was a big negative. Very informative and a great starting point for further research.