W. Dennis Tucker, «Psalm 95: Text, Context, and Intertext», Vol. 81 (2000) 533-541
In a previous issue of Biblica (76 [1995] 540-550)
W.H. Schniedewind argued that Ps 100 had a major influence on the psalmist who
wrote Ps 95. In this study, I argue for a diachronic approach to
intertextuality, which examines both the literary and the social environment. I
contend that the two together actually create an intertextual hermeneutic which
allows the psalmist to incorporate previous traditions and texts in such a way
as to address changing social and religious demands.
Based on citation, allusion and
reversal, I contend that the
psalmist of Ps 95 did in fact incorporate element of Ps 100, but in addition,
the psalmist added the Massah-Meribah tradition, while adding a deuteronomic slant
to the psalms. The use of the Massah-Meribah tradition along the
deuteronomic influences, created a psalm that would have been particularly
appropriate for a community still reeling from the devastation of exile.
that the methods of inner-biblical exegesis need to be refined to establish criteria that will assist in the determination of allusions, citations, and influence.
II. Approaching the Text(s)
If Fishbane, Sommer, and Schniedewind are correct in that one can determine the historical process of inner-biblical exegesis, then how would this process be conceived? It would be much too simplistic only to assert that communities of faith took old texts and traditions and used them in the formation of their newer texts. The critical question is not really whether they used older texts or traditions, but rather, why they chose the texts that they did and further, what light does this shed on their interpretative processes?
The interpretative process might be sketched out as follows. The original text, or tradition, is inherited by a new community. As this community seeks to interpret this text for its own time, there are two influences that impinge upon the process: the social context and the community hermeneutic. The events in the larger social environment effect how the community hears and transmits the story. The most pressing context for those inheriting the text or tradition is no longer the original context, but their own13. The second influence is the community hermeneutic. This may be construed as the way in which the community understands itself and how they project that self-understanding back onto the world around them. Do they still see themselves as the people of God? Do they feel God has abandoned them? These questions and their answers would effect the way in which they hear and transmit the older material. As a new community receives the text or tradition, the material is filtered through the dual lens of the social context and the community hermeneutic. In the process, they pick up, adapt, modify, and adopt the old text, joining with it their own statements of faith, thus producing the final result — the intertext. As D. Boyarin contends, the process of intertextuality ‘is, in a sense, the way that history, understood as cultural and ideological change and conflict, records itself within textuality’14. How is such ‘cultural and ideological change and conflict’ reflected in Ps 95? How are the older texts and traditions adapted for use in Ps 95?
Psalms 95 and 100
The most obvious connection between the two psalms appears in 95,6b-7a and 100,3.