Originally published in German in 2003, Bernd Janowski's Arguing With God: A Theological Anthropology of the Psalms represents a major contribution to the rich field of contemporary German psalms scholarship. Throughout his distinguished career, Janowski has published widely on the Psalms and the area of biblical theology more generally. As a scholar, he has shown a consistent canonical interest, developing it according to what he sees as both its diachronic and its synchronic dimensions. In this book, Janowski brings this background to bear on the fundamental question, “What is a human being?” which he poses in relation to the psalmic poles of lament and praise, or death and life.

The overall structure of the book mirrors what Janowski sees as this basic anthropological movement of the Psalms. Following an introduction that deals with Old Testament anthropology generally, Janowski divides his book into two main parts. The first section, “From Life to Death,” includes four chapters that address different modes of human suffering expressed in the lament psalms. The second section, “From Death to Life,” begins with the darkest of laments, Psalm 88, and moves from there into psalms of praise and trust that express the human realities of salvation and divine presence. Each chapter of the book includes both a detailed exegesis of a representative psalm and an “Anthropological Keyword” section (such as “Seeing and Hearing” and “Gratitude”) and excurses that deal with a variety of relevant theological themes (such as “light and darkness” and “closeness to God”).

The particular delight of this book lies in the wide range of sources from which Janowski draws in order to come to some understanding of his overall question. He engages with sociological and psychological research in addition to making use of the usual exegetical suspects. Moreover, he includes a wonderful range of comparative material, with images from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt interspersed with his exegetical and theological interpretations of psalms. Lastly, Janowski's canonical interest surfaces in his creative use of the history of interpretation, as he cites sources as diverse as Martin Luther and Paul Klee, while also finding space enough to include a relevant image of Psalm 17 from the ninth-century Utrecht Psalter.

One of the interesting things about this book is that it resonates very deeply with the work of psalms scholars in the United States of recent years, and yet Janowski does not engage with their work. Janowski's theological concern and canonical move into the New Testament echo the insights of US scholars beginning with Brevard Childs, and seen also in the work of scholars such as James L. Mays. Certainly, too, Janowski's call for a renewed use of the lament in the church (chapter 10) parallels the same call in the work of Walter Brueggemann. The ironic benefit of these peculiar omissions is that this new translation of Janowski's book by Armin Siedlecki will broadcast more widely the deep recesses of German scholarship that are perhaps less well-known to scholars and students of the Psalms outside of Europe, and hopefully lead to increased engagement and dialogue.

No doubt this dense and often complex text will appeal primarily to specialists. Janowski's exegesis is rigorous and requires some knowledge of the history of scholarship. Yet it is clear, particularly in the final chapters, that Janowski intends the insights of this book to travel beyond the bookshelves of the university library. True to his canonical orientation, Janowski sees his work within the larger context of the life of the Christian community. This is evident throughout the book, but becomes sharply obvious in the final chapter, where he turns to a reading of Psalm 22 in relation to the crucifixion account of Mark's Gospel, a text that substantiates the “significance of the Old Testament lament-spirituality for the Christian understanding of Jesus' death and resurrection” (338). For Janowski, the Psalms are a crucial element within the life of faith. As he writes, “The Psalms are a book for living [Lebensbuch] rather than a book for reading [Lesebuch]” (348).