We don't have too many guest blog posts, but today we have one by our African co-worker, Kenosi Molato. He does a review of another book in the series by Jayson Georges, of paraphrased books of the Bible drawing the reader to the honor-shame dynamics present in the biblical portion. This one, paraphrasing 15 Psalms, follows on from two others in the series: 1 Peter, and Esther.
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I have been preaching through the book of Psalms for close to three years now. Jayson George's book covers those crucial issues which I have grappled with in my sermon preparation. Furthermore, as an African living and ministering in a cosmology which is predominantly honor-shame focused, the book has aided me in the struggle of liberating the biblical text which has been enmeshed in the guilt-oriented worldview in previous translations and interpretations. Moreover it provides a fresh look at the book of Psalms in a way which resonates with my honor-shame oriented heart and outlook on life.
Though Jayson's aim is to provide a paraphrase of the Psalms, I find his explanations of the socio-theological context and the theological motif (Honor of God, the shamefulness of people of God, honoring the faithful, honoring the king, shaming the enemies), as one of the main contributions he makes to the interpretation of the book of Psalms (pg. 13-28). These theological motifs provide a reader of the Psalms with tools to deal with the difficulties, which are associated with interpreting different and difficult liturgy, such as the imprecatory Psalms, in the context of honor and shame societies.
One of the key concepts which Jayson highlights, is one that I have grappled with. It is the issue of the covenant. I have mentioned to my co-worker that it is the basis one has to use in the interpretation of the book of Psalms. But I lament that there has been a lack of emphasis and also literature in the honor and shame discussion concerning the topic. I wished that Jayson could have labored more on this concept but he just spent a page and half on the topic (pg. 13-14).
The paraphrase itself highlights the honor and shame cultural dynamics, which influences the Psalmist's writings style and also captures their rhetoric styles. With this in view, Jayson gets between the exegete and the reader by providing the reader with lenses to see the scripture from the social setting, which had been hidden or veiled by the translation.
Moreover, Jayson does not only use the words 'honor-shame' but uses the synonyms such as humiliation, status and demotion. These synonyms give the paraphrase a touch, taste and vivid expression of honor-shame dynamics in the text, consequently making it to come alive.
However, when reading this paraphrase of Psalms, I came to realize that Honor and Shame cultures differ with the usage of terms. E.g. Jayson uses the terms 'patron' and 'client' in most of his paraphrase depicting the relationship between Yahweh and his people (Pg. 37). While the concept may be present in my African context I don't feel the terms would carry the weight or the intended meaning in a helpful way. I wouldn't go so far as to replace "Shepherd" with "Patron" as Jayson does in Psalm 23:1. If there was a need to bring in the concept of patronage I would have preferred to see something like "Yahweh is my shepherd who is my perfect patron" rather than reduce and replace the concept of shepherd totally with only patron.
Jayson Georges often goes beyond normal paraphrases and moves to the explanatory sense such as in Psalm 15 (pg. 35-36). Though this is helpful and Jayson desires to illuminate the text's honor-shame rhetoric, some might see this as an interpretation of Psalms rather than a paraphrase, consequently making the book to lose its main goal and purpose.
I was let down by the fact that I felt the author left out the most crucial aspects of honor and shame culture in relation to sin, forgiveness and repentance, which appear in Psalms, especially in Psalm 32 whereby the issue of covering is used. Consequently this could have led to the discussion of how shame is dealt with in relation to sin.
Most of all Jayson must be honored and appreciated for such a great work and I hope that the next paraphrase of the Psalms is on the way because the book has left me longing for more.
By Kenosi Molato
Thank you for this guest post. I am reading through the Psalms right now and it was interesting to see where my thinking diverges to that of other cultures.
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