Fall Into the Psalter

In the summer of 2015, I wrote a blog, "A Summer in the Psalms." (Note the alliteration? 😁) In that blog, I worked through the first 41 psalms. This autumn I will return to this topic. Since the word "Psalter" is used to describe the entire book of psalms, then this fall we will "Fall into the Psalter". (Sorry -- that's the best I can do with the word play!)

I have spent more than 50 years reading the Bible, thinking seriously about being a Christian and making a variety of attempts at being a "Jesus follower." Amidst the pleasure of reading and learning, I have focused on processing knowledge and information.  (I have been, after all, a university professor.)

I have tended to ignore -- or make weak attempts at -- worship and prayer.

To address this shortcoming, I spent the summer of 2015 studying (again) the Old Testament Psalms. Yes, this was a study, so that, yes, I did get to read and learn -- but the subject of the study was to be the texts of David (and others) on worship.  If I could study and learn from David, maybe I could use my strength (love of learning) to address a weakness (my random, weak attempts at worship.)

During that summer I used three books (commentaries) in the Psalms. An old favorite was the monograph Psalms 1-72, by Derek Kidner (Tyndale Press, 1973.)  A second text was the delightful The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, by Robert Alter (2007.) In that book, Alter offers his own careful and loving translation of the ancient Hebrew, with an emphasis on the most reasonable meanings and interpretations of the text.

A third book was Reflections on the Psalms, by C. S. Lewis.  The first two texts, above, are written by Hebrew scholars but the book by Lewis, in contrast, is described by the author as the work of an "amateur", one who wants to meditate on the psalms and learn of them, while admitting that he knows little of Hebrew.  Lewis's motive resonates with me.  I too am an amateur, stimulated by Lewis while educated, at least a little, by Alter and Kidner.

For the English text of the various psalms, I will use the New International Version (NIV) translation of the ancient Hebrew texts.

The book of Psalms is broken into five parts, each part also called a "book". Book I consists of Psalms 1-41.  In this three year study of the Old Testament, we will spend almost 27 weeks in the psalms, more than half a year.  For this reason, I will break up the study by these five "books", inserting a study of a book of psalms between studies of other Old Testament books.  We will look at Book I of the psalms from September 25 through November 11, 2023 and then return to Old Testament history, picking up the books of 1 and 2 Kings. After 1 and 2 Kings, in early January, we will pick up Book II of the psalms. And so on, spreading out our study of the psalms across parts of several different years.

Manuscripts on the Psalms

The book of Psalms comes to us as a collection of (roughly) 150 psalms, arranged in five books.  Many of the psalms have an editorial comment at the beginning, ascribing an author to the psalm or linking the psalm with a specific historical event.  Several psalms are repeated; Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 are essentially the same; Psalm 70 is repeated within Psalm 40.  Book I (Psalms 1-41) are supposedly "of David" but other psalms of David occur outside Book I.  Clearly, some type of collecting and editing of the entire "book" of Psalms occurred at some point (probably after the Babylonian captivity.)

The original writings of the psalms aged and decayed over time and were repeatedly copied and recopied.  There are a number of ancient texts from which we can recover most of the original writings.

I will say more about the structure of the psalms in the next Sunday essay.