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DAVID C. MITCHELL, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms (JSOTSup 252; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997). Pp. 428. 40, S66.
In this book, which began as a doctoral dissertation at New College, Edinburgh, David C. Mitchell argues that the Hebrew Psalter "was designed by its redactors as a purposefully ordered arrangement of lyrics with an eschatological message" (p. 15). This is a bold thesis. Numerous scholars have suggested that at the time of the Psalter's completion the royal psalms were read as predictions of a future ruler, but no one has proposed that the order of these psalms, let alone the whole Psalter, displays an eschatological program.
Mitchell begins the defense of his theory in his review of research (chaps. and 2), where he identifies himself with scholars who have seen an intentional plan in the Psalter's arrangement. However, he argues against the current trend to see historical recollection as the purpose of the Psalter. M's preference for an eschatological reading is based primarily on external evidence such as the "eschatologically conscious milieu" of the Psalter's final editing (p....