THE BOOK OF PRAISE: Dialogues on the Psalms

by Mark & Maurice Samuel Van Doren ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1974

Following the success of In the Beginning, Love (1973) Samuel's devoted wife Edith has ""retrieved out of the air"" (NBC radio's The Eternal Light -- dialogues on the Bible sponsored by The Jewish Theological Seminary) fourteen additional conversations between scholar and Pulitzer poet. The subject this time is the Book of Psalms, second in popularity only to Genesis. According to Van Doren, who also taught a course on the Bible as literature at Columbia, these are ""the greatest lyric poems in the world""; ""this book. . . covers the entire field of feeling and of experience."" In an aside, Samuel adds, ""And every word is both inevitable and unpredictable."" In examining the psalms as the expression of both an individual and a universal consciousness, the interlocutors touch on the meaning of guilt, justice, judgment, the Law, the adversary, wickedness in man, the distinction between remorse and contrition and the necessity, above all, to give praise to God. The talks are punctuated with exclamations on the love, wonder and beauty to be found in the poems and by inference, in Himself. The authors' powerful affirmations of faith are in line with their concern over the ""absence today of moral indignation."" Not every reader will agree that our hard times are the result of having forgotten God, but these are intelligent conversations that reflect a deep moral accord between two eminent humanists of an older school.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: John Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION