All right, well, they got blessed as new Bible study as we studied to book the Psalms together The Psalms lift up your hearts is going to be a 16 part series on the Psalms And I'm telling you right now that's not even close to being long enough I was thinking about doing it twice as long But of course who's gonna listen to a 30 plus part series on the Psalms Maybe one day we'll do that and have a lot more time to bring in a ton of the great commentary of tradition But we're just gonna be able to have this great thorough complete introduction and it will just feel like that even though it's 16 weeks It will feel like that so really quickly before we dive into lesson one I'll just draw your to your attention to syllabus and suggested reading the outline of lesson titles They're all right there in the syllabus and suggested reading sheet that I gave you right there You can download them straight from the websites and the welcome section of this course 16 titles are there each because it's the book of the Psalms you're going through 150 different Psalms I'm going to avoid doing snazzy little titles for each one We're just gonna probably tackle right around 10 Psalms for each lesson based on the divisions of the five books of the Psalter that'll make a lot more sense of what we mean five books of the Psalter If you don't know what that means I'm gonna explain it in this introductory lesson here So just hang on tight So you got the division of the Psalms right there listed and then there's a whole bunch of different books that you can consult and as always I try to be very Cheesy and of course there's so much out there on really Every book of the Bible but when you got these big famous beautiful books like the Psalms There's just gonna be an untold amount of resources So I'm just gonna stick to the Catholic basics that we have here There's a list of ten different resources that you can consult and I probably might add more later on as things build up But that's gonna be plenty There's so much there to go through that carefully and to meditate on it and study it would be a great endeavor So you're gonna have all those resources as usual commentaries and you should have a study Bible in the bar Bible and drugs You'll test them it hey doc and there's just there's just a ton listed here some other smaller books by Michael Barber and Grant I'm not too confused with the other A bird's in the petri book that's a great resource too, but there's a lot here you can read it for yourself That's all I want to spend time on the syllabus and suggested reading because it's just so straightforward This first lesson is entitled introducing the book of Psalms So as I do for every single book of the Bible for every new Bible study I want to kind of contextualize the book itself and then look at these various introductory topics Which you can find in pretty much any commentary you consult you know stuff on the title authorship dating the literary techniques and genres for the Psalms is really Interesting because it is key group poetry so we want to understand the literary genres and techniques and types of Psalms how these verses are organized and structured That's all really exciting stuff. We'll look at the structure of the solitary name themes the typology all that stuff It will be a good solid hour of us with us looking at all these themes And then we'll build that foundation and be able to jump into chapter one next week or next I should say next lesson depending on how Quickly you're listening to this. All right, so that's the game plan for this lesson So we'll get Roman numeral one and try to understand the great importance of the Psalms in life the church a little bit of Bible trivia about this Particular book because it's super duper important. It is the longest book of the Bible naturally right into 150 Psalms It's more or less right smack in the middle of your Bible Not quite but pretty close right smack in the long right back in the middle your Bible the longest book And it's the most quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament So if you were to give out a gold silver and bronze metal to the first second and third most quoted books of the Old Testament The gold would easily easily easily go to the Psalms I mean, just you find it everywhere you find it in the gospels you find it in Acts you find it in Paul It's it's everyone right so the gold goes to the Psalms Isaiah gets second place gets the silver metal and then deuteronomy gets third place So a lot of people think oh, you know, a lot of people don't spend a lot of time with deuteronomy But I really like deuteronomy and it has its own internal structure and a beauty So go back and listen to that if you have time in the audio library So Psalms is the most quoted Old Testament book It's the longest and there are there are just so many commentaries It would be really interesting I just thought of this right now how many commentaries from tradition are there from church fathers from this Galastic writer like Thomas Aquinas and Monuments and all these other people how many different full-blown commentaries do you have from the great saints and doctors of the church?
I honestly don't know I'm just thinking about that right now And I wonder how that compares to other commentaries I would say that if it's the most quoted Old Testament book of the New Testament I'm willing to bet right now You can always drop down a comment in the comment section if you have a specific I'm gonna research that too Is it the most quoted book in the church tradition as well? It's probably darn close. It's certainly one of the top three without a shot of a doubt All right, so it's really important clearly clearly very important It is a book of praise and prayer for God's people at all times individually and as a community And in fact even as you're praying the Psalms individually Which of course you should you should take the words of the Psalter to yourself and pray them pray with them But you remember you're always part of the great community of the people of God And I'll mention the divine I'll mention the divine office right now Right so when you pray the divine office of course the divine office is through and through all Psalms all 50 150 Psalms You go through in four weeks before Vatican 2 you would go through it in one weeks That's that's a pretty impressive pace Could you imagine being a monk or none or I mean I don't think lay people could have the time to do that But you're gonna pray as eight different times throughout the day and you're praying all 150 Psalms in one week Well now it is four weeks makes it a little bit more manageable But of course the divine office is it's based on the Psalter and in the mass far the masses concerned It's the only biblical book read it every single mass And now some people might you'll be thrown off with that because they go about the gospels But remember there are four gospels and they're divided according to liturgical season in liturgical year So you might go through Matthew Mark Luke or John in a particular point But you always have the Psalms so it's this Old Testament book that is found in every single liturgy every single mass every day and day out 24 7 365 so that's that's a pretty impressive point now what I was saying a moment ago about being part of the prayer life of the book of praise and prayer for God's people even individually if you were to pray as a layperson or as a priest or whatever You're praying the Psalter in the literature the hours are by yourself You really it really is part of the community of prayer as well because we are one body of Jesus Christ And all of our prayers are joined together in union with the head of the body Which is our Lord so as a book of praise in a book of prayer in the mass every single time in the divine office You cannot overstate again once again the importance of this book So in fact, I really like this super quote super short quote from when your commentaries it says the Psalms continue to be the living Heartbeat of the church's prayer to the present day and that's a really great expression It is the living heart beat of the church's prayer to the present day So that's beautiful because we inherit the Psalter from our older Jewish brothers and sisters of the faith right the Jewish people have The queen that to the church which is the new Israel the new people of God and so we have that continuity for a long time We'll talk about authorship and dating now here really really soon But just imagine David is writing the majority of the Psalms around 1000 BC That's 3000 years later now. We're praying all these different songs and hymns and it's beautiful in the prayers It's awesome Right so it is a living heart beat of the church's prayer to this very day And although I decided I don't have time really to get into the catechism and everything the catechism has to say on the Psalms Otherwise this one simple lecture introducing the entire book would easily become two separate lectures two hours plus But I did put in your footnote you can look at catechism paragraph 2585 and following to see a lot of great Instruction on how important the Psalms are in the life of the church So check that out if you don't have a catechism definitely get a catechism paragraph 2585 and following All right So the next part about the Psalms that's really important to keep in mind in the reason why it's so popular and people love it so much And it's the living heartbeat of the church's prayer to the present days in the Mass It's in the divine office the literature the hours everywhere people just love it and are drawn to it because it expresses the full Spectrum of human emotions and experiences as they are present to the God right sometimes in a very raw human way Sometimes when you're praying I'm willing to bet you have a very raw visceral reaction to injustice and you want vengeance on your enemies And on the other hand you're just like your heart is bursting with joy and love and gratitude to God for everything that he's done for you in his life So from one side of the spectrum to the other everything in between you have something in the Psalms to put words to your emotions into your experiences And that's what makes it so beloved you know oftentimes you're gonna find you know if you have a very short Bible a pocket Bible You're gonna have the gospels and Psalms maybe Proverbs as well or the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs perhaps but of the Old Testament If you're only put one book Combined with the New Testament it's gonna be the Psalms from the old right so it's because it puts into words everything that we're feeling and the church has Always felt this way there's a very famous letter that St.
Athanasius of Alexandria wrote to a friend It's found in many commentaries and what I decided to do is put it in foot number two for you I'm gonna read it right now because it's expressing this point about how beautiful this book is for whatever we're feeling and with On a sunny day on a cloudy day on a rainy day stormy day whatever all the ups and downs the victories that defeat everything that we experience and feel This salt or expresses for us St. Athanasius in the early church put it very very well So this is what he says you'll find this full quote in many different places But I want to share it with you right now. All right, so everybody says among all the books The Psalter has certainly a very special grace a choiceness of quality well worthy to be pondered for besides the characteristics Which it shares with the other books of scripture? It has the peculiar marvel of its own that within it are represented and portrayed in all their great variety the movements of the human soul It is like a picture in which you see yourself portrayed and seeing may understand consequently how to form yourself upon the pattern given Elsewhere in the Bible you read only that the law commands this or that to be done You listen to the prophets to learn about the Savior's coming or you turn to the historical books to learn the doings of the kings and holy men But in the Psalter besides these things you learn about yourself you find depicted in it all the movements of your soul All its changes its ups and downs failures and recoveries moreover Whatever your particular need or trouble from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it So that you do not merely hear it and pass on but you learn the way to remedy your ill in quote and that lovely I hope you really enjoyed that that is a really fantastic quote If you want if you don't have access to my notes whatever reason you have your comments, right that particular translation I got from your Catholic introduction deal testament and like I said you can find it elsewhere I mean Google so you have the nation's on the Psalms and it's pretty famous It's pretty popular and you can see why the express is very beautifully All right One more quick thing about the importance of the Psalter is that it truly is a summary The saints will say a summary of the entire biblical message of salvation of divine revelation really all theology And so St.
Thomas Aquinas said that the book of the Psalms has the general material of theology as a whole That's that's impressive right? That's incredible the book of the Psalms has the general material of theology as a whole So if you're meditating of course of Christology number one all the Psalms speak Christ all scripture speaks Christ They want to talk about the church you want to talk about salvation redemption faith trust I mean you name it the church Mary even Mary's in the Psalter is really beautiful of certain parts I'll get to that as we go through I have little surprises for you hanging out for it But it has the summary of all the theology that dynamite and this is why I think so many Saints have commentaries on the Psalter And if I were ever to have the grace the energy the strength to do a double doubly long commentary or course on the Psalms Make it 30 40 parts. I would 100% just jam pack it with some of these great commentaries from the saints But of course we have to be choosy as much as possible right now All right So I hope you get the sense how important this book is it's the soul not really the soul of the soul of the Physiology that scripture as a whole is that I can do says but it has a general material of theology as a whole that expresses all of our human Emotions and experiences in a very real human way and that's why it's in every it's in every mass It's in the divine office every single prayer time and we should be meditating on it reflecting upon it as often as possible Can all right so I gotta move on now, but I just really excited about this Bible study I hope you are too as they go through it little by little all right Let's look at some introductory topics here now for the rest of the duration first of course the title All right, so in Hebrew the Psalms are called the Sefer Tachilim so Stephanie's book Tachilim is praises So it's a book of praises according to the Hebrew title book of praises that highlights this theme of divine worship and Liturgy the Psalms are liturgical they're meant to be used to worship God especially in singing because the Greek title is Solmoy we get Psalm from the Greek psalmoy. Sometimes on factors one Greek Old Testament that calls it the sultarian So sometimes you might hear it be called the sultur that comes from the Greek Alexandrianus the Greek Codex Alexandrinus copy of the Old Testament and that's why it's all the sultur but generally it's Solmoy what does solmoy mean?
It's songs sung to the accompaniment of string instruments Sultarian is an actual string instrument that's really interesting It tells you what the purpose of the Psalms are is to praise God and you're supposed to use string instruments Which I really like because I'm just a little personal note in my family my wife plays the harp the classical harp But mostly the Irish harp and so it's always really interesting as I walk by the music room And I see the harps actually couple harps right there Three to be honest three harps three harps sitting there and I just think of the Psalms and David playing on his liar And it's just it's a really beautiful thing to to take the Psalms and put him to music I should say on that very point We don't exactly know how the Psalms sound it as you try to put it into a meter or a rhyme I'm not very musical myself I just I should have stuck with piano lessons when I was younger I didn't stick with it and my dad should have made me do it He didn't right so I'm gonna blame him for putting his foot down I'm not very musical but he got the meter and the rhyme the flow of how how did these Psalms sound back in the day We don't really know I mean you have various individuals and Institute who are trying to figure that out and it's just the best guess honestly as I understand It's just the best guess it was just too long ago for us to understand how they sound it right All right, but nevertheless they were meant to be sung with stringed instruments now in Latin it comes to us Lee Bear Psalmorum which means literally book of the Psalms or book of songs I don't want to look at so set their tachaleen book of praises in Hebrew Psalmoy in Greek and Libe Bear Psalmorum book of songs in the Latin and of course English just takes it straight from the Greek the book Psalms and or Latin as well, all right So that's pretty straightforward as far as the titles are concerned now when we get to authorship and dating This is really interesting because I think it's arguable that every book of the Bible I'm gonna back up there second. All right, everybody the Old Testament perhaps has multiple authors I mean I'm backing up because Matthew was written by Matthew mark by mark Luke by Luke and Paul's epistles So I'm just put the New Testament aside and in the Old Testament You have the I'm teaching this between where we've gone through the Pentateuch and the historical books like the Pentateuch was written by Moses But he wasn't the sole author here's the predominant author and that's kind of what you have here, too You've got David as the predominant author he wrote the majority of the Psalms the Hebrew text describes 73 seasonal Dechlexia there 73 Psalms are attributed to him in the Hebrew version the Greek version gives him 86 That's a solid majority right there. So David did write the majority of the Psalms He's the predominant author, but he's not the only author and luckily we have some clarity of who the other authors are I was going to go through just a second here. So David is very musical.
This is one thing that many people know about him I love this line in 2nd Samuel 23 verse 1. He's called towards the end of his life the sweet psalmist of Israel That's a lovely title you can find books written by about David with that title on it the sweet psalmist of Israel So he was known for being very very musical. He was a poet and I got a bunch of references in your notes here From first annual and second Samuel of him writing songs and singing songs He's according to Amos 6 5 invented instruments that would have been amazing to learn more about that I don't know if we know any specifics about what instruments he invented and he was a great reformer of the temple's musical worship Like he's kind of like the great number one musical director I guess you could say of the temple liturgy we have musical directors I guess he did too and he appointed and hired musical directors Which I want to talk about as we flip the page here So the David authorship shouldn't be disputed within within the text of scripture the internal evidence as well as the external evidence of Jewish Tradition and Christian for that matter the most even Jewish since it was a thousand years before Christ He was the the great musical genius of Israel right so David is known for many things But including his the fact that he's a Psalmist just like his son Solomon is known for his wisdom among other things as well Right, so he has a number of different points of proof that this guy easily could have written all of these Psalms throughout his life All right And even in the New Testament Jesus the apostles attributed many Psalms today But I got a slew of them right here in your notes Matthew 22 acts one acts two acts four Romans four and so on and so forth You'd see all those in your spare time I think you get the point the tradition of the Jewish people going all the way to Jesus and the apostles knew that David was a great Liturgical reformer according to his musical abilities. So that's a really beautiful thing He wrote the majority of the Psalms another author is Solomon his son.
So both David and Solomon are in the 10th century We're gonna talk about authorship and dating together. It's very easy to remember broad strokes here Okay without getting too much into the weeds that you kind of want various hooks to hang your hat on Abraham lived around 2000 BC David lived around 1000 BC and then Jesus is of course right smack in the middle time Zero just call it zero. Okay, so a thousand years before Christ So David and Solomon in the same century Solomon interestingly only has two Psalms though So his name David has a majority depending on if you're looking at the Greek or the Hebrew versions But still he has a majority at least half of my majority And then Solomon has two Psalms 72 and 127. We'll talk about those in due time.
They're either by him or about him I mean you could feel free to research the evidence and choose whatever you want to believe about that But they either buy him or about him or both as the case may be so that's interesting and now Moses and Moses we're going way back in time Moses is from the 15th century. I would argue 1450 approximately is where I hang my hat for the Exodus some people say it's in the 1200s I think 1400s makes a lot of sense But we can't get into all that just go check out the Exodus Bible study for arguments on the dating of the Exodus But Moses in the 15th century and he is given Psalm 90 again either by him or inspired by him It is possible that he had this prayer which is Psalm 90 in oral tradition and even written tradition passed down throughout the ages Then now it is put into the Psalter that's 100% possible. We just can't prove it or anything So you know choose what you want to believe about that He actually wrote it or he it was inspired by him And then this point D there are many other Levites who are appointed by David I to joke that he David hired these musical directors to serve in the temple And of course this is the biggest largest megachurch the temple is in the in the Old Testament So he had many musical directors to help write the songs and you know lead the choir and all this stuff Right so David appointed these various Levites and you can find all these details and chronicles He appointed these Levites and they ended up becoming the fathers of respective guilds or schools of musical instruction How you want to look at that so there's a number of them mentioned here Asaf He has 12 Psalms Jadu-Thun has three Psalms he man. I can't say his name without thinking masters of the universe It's just ridiculous, but he man or come on the Ezra Heights.
He has one He man master the universe wrote a Psalm. There's right there right in Psalm number 88 Well, it's he man and then Ethan Ethan Allen. I guess Ethan the Ezra height as well. He has only one So they come right one after the other 88 and 89 and then you have the sons of Korah They have 11 so it's interesting Korah will talk more about later on the review why he's important in salvation history once we get To one of his Psalms.
So if I say to say right now, we know a lot about Korah We don't know much about these other dudes Asaf Jadu-Thun He man Ethan. We don't know much about them at all, but Korah as an individual He actually lived at the time of the Exodus so Korah is a cousin of Moses and Aaron He wanted the priesthood for himself He's a Levite but he's not descended from Aaron So he's got a big chip on his shoulder and the short end of it is he and 250 people rebelled against Moses and Aaron and God And then the ground opened up and swallowed them whole some sort of like massive sinkhole or whatever happened And so he died but his sons his descendants clearly were were worthy. They were faithful Obedient and in tradition they ended up becoming these individuals who led musical instruction in the temple So appointed by David, which is pretty cool. So that's the short end of his story This short version of his story, but these individuals Asaf Jadu-Thun he man Ethan sons of Korah They all have a pretty sizable and trying to add this up quickly in my brain right there 1628 that's 28 different Psalms attributed to these guys and 30 of them I should say really quick are anonymous We don't know who wrote them They're just Psalms given to us and we don't know any particulars of the wind the why the how the what you know who wrote them And when they wrote them or anything like this, but the majority of them again David Psalm has two Moses one if that is I think I think I'm gonna put a gun in my head and make me choose I would say that this prayer of Moses was preserved in oral tradition in some way and then these other individuals as well That's a lot of authors that we that we know about and then these 30 other ones could are 30 other authors perhaps or a handful have it doesn't other Due to who wrote these so then if we're looking at the dating so we got those are the authors of the Psalms And if you look at the dating therefore what we're generally looking at putting Moses aside from the 15th century The Psalms were written by David and so therefore you've got the united mount monarchy So that's gonna go roughly from 1000 or the what we say the early 900s so 990s 90s but basically 1000 BC up to the exile So you've essentially you got the pre-exilic period the axilic period and the post-exilic period That's the three broad strokes that you want to look at okay before the exile during the exile and after the exile And then the after the exile that's going into the 400s when they returned from the exile and they rebuilt the temple was rebuilt in 515 So then getting into the you know 500s 490s 480s That's probably when a lot of these were written a little bit later than that So how does the book get to us at what time does the book get to us in its finished completed form?
We really don't know I could probably argue safely it was right around the time it was started to get translated into the Greek Which was the Septuagint that whole process started with the pentatook around 200 BC So let's say it was before 200 BC so sometime between what 400 and 200 BC 300 200 BC sometime in that period It was completed in its present form it then handed down to the apostles and Jesus Christ in the church Okay, I know that's pretty broad But that's the broad strokes of what we know about now There's one more thing to say about authorship and that that's the superscriptions that you're going to find at the beginning of 116 out of 150 Psalms have a heading or a superscription. It's not like it's not like Superman like superscription You know it's nothing like that it's a super means above inscription is writing so it's a writing above the song literally It's a heading and these are traditionally accepted as scriptural It's a little bit of debate here, but I think the consensus if I'm not wrong is that they are considered scriptural and thus inspired So for example, there's a billion of these well 116 to be precise not a billionness and exaggeration But Psalm 3 so the line in bold is not inspired trust and God under adversity That is not the inspired superscription The superscription is the normal text where it gives us an idea of who wrote it on the purpose for which it was written It's use in which by the way, there's a lot of words in here that we just don't know about I'm not gonna spend a lot of time Hypothesizing about words that scholars don't even know about but these superscriptions will tell us it's use Who's to write it? Who's to sing it whatever what the historical context was so for Psalm 3 It says a Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son Just as an example, I just flipped the page here Psalm 8 It says to the choir master so that's the use you're supposed to remember It's supposed to be sung musically with a stringed instrument for religious worship purposes So this is for the choir master according to the gith- Gith- A psalm of David So gith- T- T- T- What's a gith- Or if you go to number 9 to the choir master according to the Muth-Laben Like what's going on with this? There's it's really interesting my eyes begin to glaze over all the You read the various commentaries that try to figure out what all these different words might mean I'm just gonna spare us that a particular research There's a lot of details we could find if we had time for but my point for you is As we go through the Psalms, 116 of these have these super descriptions They are inspired they are scriptural They are preserved in the manuscript tradition, which is pretty interesting All right, okay, so that's this first concept we want to be looking at is title Of course authorship and dating many authors predominantly dated David starting in 1000 Go so I should say from 1000 to give or take say 500 or after you say 400 We're talking five 600 years of history and tradition of the jewish people to make this book written That's a long time.
That's a and of course God died at all because it's inspired word All right, so that's enough for authorship and dating Now let's look at point C literary techniques and genres This is really exciting stuff because now we get to understand how the Psalms were written or at least the poetry that is in That is in use but called bicola I'm gonna mention that right now Talk about that and the various other types of Psalms that are found And you got multiple commentaries any good commentary is gonna spend a little bit of time Talking about the various types of Psalms And if you got a good commentary like your catholic you'll testament It will talk about the various literary devices techniques that are in play here By a colon or bicolor tricolor and that makes it really really fun So don't let your eyes glaze over here in this next section because if you go through the next 15 lessons in the Psalms It's really really cool to see the techniques that are being employed here to describe a particular point All right, and it could be prophecy for that matter, you know about Jesus Christ and so you got a bicola about Jesus And you're like oh wow, okay, this is gonna teach me a couple new little things All right, so first let's look at literary techniques Hey, this is Doc Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson Please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course But also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand However, and whenever you want so thank you so much. God bless you and keep studying your Bible