Vasileios Marinis and Volker Leppin discuss human nature, sovereignty over creation, and preacherly responsibility with reference to Psalm 8. The text is appointed for the First Sunday after Christmas, in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary.
A Little Lower Than God (First Sunday after Christmas)
Voiceover Voice:
We are crowned with honor by God. We should behave in a way that is appropriate to this kind of elevation.
Helena Martin:
Happy New Year! This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study.
This episode is coming out just after Christmas, so I hope you’re listening to it while lying on a sofa, breathing in essential oils and wearing a rejuvenating facemask—or whatever it is you do to relax.
This week, we have Volker Leppin, Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, and Vasileios Marinis, Associate Professor of Christian Art and Architecture. They’re discussing Psalm 8, which is appointed for the First Sunday after Christmas Day in Year A. Here’s the text.
[Psalm 8]
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Volkin Leppin:
When reading this Psalm there are some verses where I say, yes, absolutely. And there are others where I’m very reluctant saying, can you really say this? Just look on the first verse, “Yet you have made them,” which is the human beings, “a little lower than God.” I don’t feel like just being a little lower than God, I more feel like the words before, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them.” I feel quite far away from God. I feel like someone who doesn’t have the power of God. Who doesn’t have the righteousness of God. So, I wonder why the Psalmist wants to say with, “just a little lower than God.”
Vasileios Marinis:
Yeah, that’s a very interesting point. This is a wonderful song of praise. And I think one of the main themes, if not the main theme here, is to underscore God’s magnificence and splendor. But also say that despite this, God deigned to make humans the agents of his sovereignty on earth, made them important.
I think these are paradoxes that you underscore in verses four and five. In verse four, what are human beings that you are mindful of the mortals, that you care for him. Then on five it says, “yet you have made them a little lower than God.” It expresses perhaps surprise that God in all their magnificence is doing something like that.
Volkin Leppin:
So, you say my feeling of this tangent is already made clear by the Psalmist. Yeah, there is a tangent. But then it’s still following this verse which explains what glory and honor of the human being is. As you said, we are agents of God’s serenity. Are sheep and oxen happy about us having the dominion over them? How do we deal with them? Do we do this in a way beings just a little lower than God should do? Or is it our way to deal with them and making them working for us, eating them, taking them for our own purposes?
Vasileios Marinis:
Yeah. In reading the Psalm, I think, what we need to consider is that it represents perhaps a gold standard. It tells us that God in their magnificence is doing that. And we need to be mindful and behave accordingly. We are crowned with glory and honor by God. And we should behave in a way that is appropriate to this kind of elevation
Volkin Leppin:
Nice reading. I would like to follow you. I’m just not sure I can do that because it does not say you should do it like this, but you are crowned. And you are the one to whom God has given dominion. So, it is more like a description. And I’m wondering if I find myself in this description.
Vasileios Marinis:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s perhaps something to aspire to. It’s something that we ought to do, and we need to do. Even if, I guess, what we see here is God saying, perhaps this is your standard of behavior and that’s what you need to aspire to. Now, it’s your personal responsibility to do that. And if you don’t by reading the Psalm, you need to consider what kind of behavior is appropriate for a being that is created just a bit lower than the angels.
Volkin Leppin:
And when we connect this with Christmas, is it about all of us human beings? Is it about us human beings seeing as God himself would become a human being? And so, would you go so far to say this ideal, which is mandated in the Psalm, is fulfilled somehow in Jesus Christ?
Vasileios Marinis:
Yeah, I think that you’re quite correct. One of the traditional Greek Orthodox interpretations of this Psalm is that this is a Psalm of the Incarnation. That God deigned to become human and live among us. God at the same time, raises the stakes for humans. The incarnation, the incarnation of divinity is such an extraordinary event that raises the stakes for everybody.
Volkin Leppin:
And somehow reading the Psalm like this, it’s a kind of appropriating. There’s a Jewish reading of it which might be completely different to this. It might be closer to the original meaning of this Psalm. I’m always a bit, am I allowed to use the Psalm in this Christological context as our Christian tradition has done for so long?
Vasileios Marinis:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think that it’s a difficult question to answer, especially when it comes to scriptures. And generally speaking, a text can, or a reader can interpret the text in a variety of ways that fit their context, their identity, and so on. But I think, just to propose something that addresses your question, I think we should always be mindful of the original context of the Psalm. Where it came from and how our respect for, as far as we reconstructed the original meaning and the interpretive tradition, that comes from the Jewish world.
Volkin Leppin:
So that makes preaching much more difficult. So having a certain message and for this message, different layers of awareness. Being aware of the fact, that’s what I preach for my congregation, for those who have the same faith as I have. But I also have to have them in mind who think different. It might change the way of preaching, promoting a certain message. It is not just giving them as such, but maybe it is more reflecting about the text.
Vasileios Marinis:
Well, I don’t think anybody would argue that preaching is easy.
Volkin Leppin:
That’s right.
Vasileios Marinis:
Yes. And as historians, both of us that deal a lot with texts and the authorial intention and all these great things, we need to recognize that texts have an original context. Now, I’m not sure, and I’m not talking specifically about scripture here, I’m not sure that the original context needs to absolutely restrain us in our interpretation. And there’s a lot of theory out there about reader response to every text. And I think when it comes to scripture specifically, and particularly when it comes to preaching on texts from the Hebrew Bible, some awareness of the non-Christian history of these texts is useful and important.
Helena Martin:
Thanks for listening. And thank you, Professors Leppin and Marinis, for thinking through Psalm 8 with us.
For more Bible study resources, check out YaleBibleStudy.org. Videos, study guides, discussion questions: it’s all free. That’s YaleBibleStudy.org.
Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and I’m your Host and Executive Producer, Helena Martin. Our theme music is by Calvin Linderman.
We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.
Book of the Bible:
Psalms
Subjects:
Psalms
Guests
Text
New Revised Standard Version Bible
Copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Credits
Host and Executive Producer: Helena Martin
Production Manager: Kelly Morrissey
Creator and Managing Editor: Joel Baden
Assistant Producer: Aidan Stoddart
Music: Calvin Linderman
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Chapter, Verse, and Season gives listeners the opportunity to overhear the kinds of conversations that take place in the halls of Yale Divinity School. Each week, professors from different theological disciplines chat about biblical texts from the Revised Common Lectionary. They bring their own interests to the table and hopefully spark new insights into the scripture appointed for each Sunday.