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SCOTT R. A. STARBUCK, Court Oracles in the Psalms: The So-called Royal Psalms in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context (SBLDS 172; Atlanta: Scholars, 1999). Pp. xx + 271. $37.
In this dissertation completed at Princeton Theological Seminary under the direction of J. J. M. Roberts, Starbuck argues that the oracles incorporated into Psalms 2, 89, 110, and 132 communicate Yahweh's promises to make Israel "a secure royal nation and a light to the peoples, with or without a king" (p. 212). These oracular royal psalms do not express a uniform royal ideology that is the polar opposite of a radical Yahwism. Rather, each psalm merits an examination of the distinctive traditio by which it reached its canonical form. In the particular formation of the diverse royal psalms, from early monarchical to postexilic times, S. sees the theological vitality of those psalms emerge. The heart of his study is the detailed textual and exegetical examination of Psalms 2, 89, 110, 132 and of the royal compositions in Isa 8:23b-9:5; 2 Sam 23:lb-7. To prepare the way for such an examination, S. reviews selected scholarly positions on the royal psalms over the past 150 years, gathers comparative data on royal hymns and prayers from other ancient Near Eastern kingdoms, and briefly examines the nonoracular royal psalms (Psalms 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 101, and 144).
Starbuck notes that the number of psalms which scholars included in the category of "royal psalms" has varied over the past 150 years, because no consensus has been reached on the definition of a royal psalm or...