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The whole Psalter could be seen as a second Torah, whose five books are witness to the making, dissolution and renewal of the covenant with David. This article looks at Book Four of that story (Psalms 90–106), where the figure of Moses and the traditions of the Exodus are prominent and create an alternative vision to the covenant with David which is under threat (Psalm 89). These seventeen psalms comprise four collections (90–92, 93–100, 101–103, 104–106). By focusing on later Jewish and Christian reception of each psalm, the article shows how Jewish tradition maintains the earlier emphases on Moses and pre-Davidic traditions, whilst Christian tradition interprets them after the time of David, through the person of Christ. However, the article demonstrates that each tradition also recognizes a universal theology throughout Book Four: God as refuge in 90–92, God's cosmic rule in 93–100, God's mercy in suffering in 101–103, and God as Creator and Redeemer in 104–106.

Books reviewed in this article: J. P. Burgess, Why Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible in a Time of Church Conflict T. E. Fretheim and K. Froehlich, The Bible as Word of God in a Postmodern Age R. S. Hess and G. J. Wenham (eds), Make the Old Testament Live from Curriculum to Classroom M. E. Mills, Images of God in the Old Testament R. J. Clifford, The Wisdom Literature S. L. McKenzie and M. P. Graham (eds), The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to the Critical Issues P. R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert (eds), Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy

It is impossible to read the first fifteen chapters of Exodus alongside the royal psalms and Zion hymns in the Psalter without noticing that very different perceptions of Israel's beginnings co-existed in the pre-exilic period. The Moses-Egypt tradition is about a wandering people, deprived of land and status, living under the promise of the protection offered by a nomadic clan-god; whilst the David-Zion tradition, fundamental to so many psalmists, concerns an established nation, a royal state cult which ratifies claims to land and status through its deity ‘housed’ in a Temple. And yet the Exodus tradition is used in a handful of psalms: the question thus arises — what purpose does it serve? Furthermore, why should the psalmists use such an anomalous tradition in this way?

The paper focuses on two individuals who have each made a seminal contribution to the debates between theology and the sciences in Oxford - Charles Darwin (in the mid�19th century), and Richard Dawkins (from the 1990s to the present day). It introduces Darwin by way of a more personal and visual view from Worcester College Chapel. The restoration of the chapel took place at about the same time as the debates between Huxley and Wilberforce in the Oxford University Museum over Charles Darwin�s On the Origin of the Species. The first part of the paper then traces these debates back: first to an earlier period of disputation represented by Galileo Galilei (c. 1564�1642), and then to a period of greater accommodation represented by Isaac Newton (1643�1727). Darwin represents a third, more controversial, stage. The paper then looks at a fourth period, from the mid�20th century onwards, which is marked by more eirenical attempts to demarcate science and theology by seeing the former again as asking the �how� questions and the latter, the �why� questions. It then focuses on a fifth, more disputatious stage, which was initiated by Richard Dawkins, professor in the Public Understanding of Science until 2008. Professor Dawkins challenges the idea that theology cannot be studied, because its focus is a non-existent object, �God�.The second part of the paper looks at various Oxford projects and Oxford theologians who have risen to this contemporary challenge. They include the work of the Ian Ramsey Centre; Justin Barret�s and John Trigg�s joint � 2 million project, supported by the John Templeton foundation, which examines scientific ideas about religion and the mind; Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006, who has conducted a number of media interviews with Richard Dawkins; Keith Ward, who has written several books engaging not only with Dawkins but is also the Cambridge Professor of Mathematics, Stephen Hawking; and Alistair McGrath, who has a doctorate in both science and theology, and who has similarly written and entered into public debates challenging Dawkin�s ideas.The paper ends by referring to John Barton, Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, who argues that provided that theology is a subject which is properly critical, open to alien truth and combines both intellectual and emotional modes of perception, it can set an example for almost any academic discipline, both in the humanities and the sciences. The conclusion is therefore that, far from theology having to become more like another science, the sciences might be challenged to become more like theology.