Verbum Tip 4af: Bible Browser: Psalms part 1

MJ. Smith
MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,851
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Docx files for personal book: Verbum 9 part 1; How to use the Verbum Lectionary and Missal

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Facet: Psalms

Psalms have been used continuously for 3000 years as prayers and songs in worship. This means that the reader should not approach them as lessons/readings as they do the remainder of scripture but, rather, pay attention to their use and meaning in liturgy and liturgical prayer. This data covers only the book of Psalms omitting the LXX psalms and the deuterographs.

In worship, the Psalms are used in three distinct manners – they may be chanted or read which preserves the text or they may be sung as metrical hymns. Some metrical psalters one should know:

  • Church of Scotland. 1650. The Psalms of David in Meeter: Newly Translated, and Diligently Compared with the Originall Text, and Former Translations, More Plaine, Smooth, and Agreeable to the Text, Then Any Heretofore.; Allowed by the Authority of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, and Appointed to Be Sung in Congregations and Families. Edinburgh: Evan Tyler, printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty.
  • Cotton, John, Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld. 1640. The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. Cambridge, Mass.: Stephen Day.
  • Keble, J. 1869. The Psalter, or Psalms of David: In English Verse. Fourth Edition. Oxford; London: James Parker and Co.
  • Mather, Cotton. 1718. Psalterium Americanum. The Book of Psalms, in a Translation Exactly Conformed unto the Original. Boston: in N.E.: S. Kneeland, for B. Eliot, S. Gerrish, D. Henchman, and J. Edwards, and sold at their shops.
  • Spurgeon, C. H. 1883. Our Own Hymn Book: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public, Social and Private Worship. London: Passmore & Alabaster.
  • Sternhold, Thomas. 1533. Al Such Psalmes of Dauid as T. Sternehold Didde in His Life Time Draw into English Metre. London: Imprinted at London in Fletestrete ouer against the Cundit, at the signe of the Sunne, by Edwarde Whitchurche.
  • Watts, Isaac, Joel Barlow, and John Trumbull. 1785. Doctor Watts’s Imitation of the Psalms of David, Corrected and Enlarged. Hartford: Barlow and Babcock.
  • Watts, Isaac. 1998. The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Some psalters for chanting or reading:

  • The Roman Psalter. 1999. electronic edition. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
  • The Benedictine Monks of Conception Abbey. 2010. The Revised Grail Psalms: A Liturgical Psalter. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, Inc.
  • The Episcopal Church. 2007. The Book of Common Prayer, 1979. New York: Church Publishing Incorporated.

On how public reading of the psalms is performed:

[quote]The Psalter is a body of liturgical poetry. It is designed for vocal, congregational use, whether by singing or reading. There are several traditional methods of psalmody. The exclusive use of a single method makes the recitation of the Psalter needlessly monotonous. The traditional methods, each of which can be elaborate or simple, are the following:

Direct recitation denotes the reading or chanting of a whole psalm, or portion of a psalm, in unison. It is particularly appropriate for the psalm verses suggested in the lectionary for use between the Lessons at the Eucharist, when the verses are recited rather than sung, and may often be found a satisfactory method of chanting them.

Antiphonal recitation is the verse-by-verse alternation between groups of singers or readers; e.g., between choir and congregation, or between one side of the congregation and the other. The alternate recitation concludes either with the Gloria Patri, or with a refrain (called the antiphon) recited in unison. This is probably the most satisfying method for reciting the psalms in the Daily Office.

Responsorial recitation is the name given to a method of psalmody in which the verses of a psalm are sung by a solo voice, with the choir and congregation singing a refrain after each verse or group of verses. This was the traditional method of singing the Venite, and the restoration of Invitatory Antiphons for the Venite makes possible a recovery of this form of sacred song in the Daily Office. It was also a traditional manner of chanting the psalms between the Lessons at the Eucharist, and it is increasingly favored by modern composers.

Responsive recitation is the method which has been most frequently used in Episcopal churches, the minister alternating with the congregation, verse by verse.[1]

 

Dataset

  • DB:SD-PSALMS-BROWSER PSALMS-BROWSER.lbssd

Documentation

  • Embedded as “About” in Witthoff, David, Kristopher A. Lyle, and Matt Nerdahl. 2014. Psalms Form and Structure. ed. Eli Evans. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

Data

Only a small portion of the data on the Psalms is available to the {Label Psalm} search:

  • Genre
    • Lament
    • Praise
    • Hymn
    • Royal
    • Wisdom
    • Thanksgiving
    • Trust
  • Attribution (which is not person)
  • Tag
  • Structure

    Strophe
  • Chiasm
  • Acrostic

Additional data available as facets in the Psalms Explorer interactive:

  • Book (of the 150-psalm psalter)
  • Preaching themes
  • According to

Detailed information regarding a psalm is also available but not searchable:

  • Parallel structures identified and classified
  • Chiasm structures identified
  • Acrostic structures identified

While LXX differences in psalm attribution are addressed, differences in psalm divisions are not. An example: The King James Version presents Psalm 9 as having 20 verses while the Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bible presents Psalm 9 as having 39 verses i.e. combining the KJV Psalm 9-10 into a single psalm. The psalms that have different boundaries in Greek and Hebrew are:

  • Hebrew 9-10 joined as Greek 9
  • Hebrew 114-115 joined as Greek 113
  • Hebrew 116 is split into Greek 114-115
  • Hebrew 147 is split into Greek 146-147

The Vulgate follows the Greek. Where one psalm is also seen as two distinct psalms the coding may need to be split to reflect the two parts.

Remember that you can add attributes through the label feature. Some potential distinctions:

From deClaissé-Walford, Nancy, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner. 2014. The Book of Psalms. eds. E. J. Young, R. K. Harrison, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

[quote]As James Limburg has written, “The two names preserved in Hebrew tradition, ‘prayers’ (tep̱illôṯ) and ‘songs of praise’ (tehillîm), may be taken as representing two fundamental types of psalms: prayers in time of need, or laments, and songs of praise, or hymns.”4,[2]

From Nasuti, Harry P. 1999. 218 Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition, and the Post-Critical Interpretation of the Psalms. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

[quote]It is significant that Athanasius closely links this effective power of the psalms to how they work as distinct genres.85 Specifically, the psalms enable a person to do all of those functions that distinguish the main psalm genres. In such a way, the psalms enable one to repent, to suffer with hope, to call out when suffering, to give thanks, to bless, praise, and confess one’s faith in God.

Athanasius often describes these genres in terms of the situations that call them forth. Such situations mandate the use of certain types of psalms, and Athanasius sometimes groups the psalms in terms of the situations in which they must be said. Thus, for example, ‘we are taught how one must call out while fleeing, and what words must be offered to God while being persecuted and after being delivered from persecution’.86 It is in the use of the right psalms in the right situation that one is ‘molded’ in the right way.[3]

From Witherington, Ben, III. 2017. Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

[quote]Of the collections within the Psalms, scholars have identified the following:

1.    Davidic psalms: Psalms 3–41; 51–72; 138–45;

2.    Korahite psalms: Psalms 42–49; 84–85; 87–88;

3.    Elohistic psalms (i.e., psalms in which God is called Elohim): Psalms 42–83;

4.    Asaph (a choir director and/or major composer of songs) collection: Psalms 73–83; and

5.    the Songs of Ascents, or Pilgrimage Psalms for traveling to Jerusalem: Psalms 120–134.[4]

 

Bible Browser

The Bible Browser provides five facets under Psalms:

  • Genre
  • Attribution
  • Structure
  • Tag
  • According to

Seeking the Psalm behind the folk song “By the Waters of Babylon”, the facets selected were:

  • Psalm: Genre: Lament
  • Psalm: Structure: Chiasm
  • Psalm: Tag: Imprecatory
  • Psalm: Attribution: David (LXX)

Interactive

See Witthoff, David, Kristopher A. Lyle, and Matt Nerdahl. 2014. Psalms Form and Structure. ed. Eli Evans. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

Main page (book of Psalms):

The main page is used to filter the psalms by facets. The visual display of the results has five methods of grouping and a nearly comprehensive popup for an individual psalm.

In Order

By Genre

By Structure

By Author

By Book

Note that the color of a psalm indicates genre and does not change across the various views. The size of the circle represents the relative length of the psalm.

Filtering in genre view by the following facets should result in the same results as the Bible browser. Watch the breadcrumbs to see the filters.

 

 

 


[1] The Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer, 1979 (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2007), 582.

4 James Limburg, “Psalms, Book of,” ABD 5:523.

[2] Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, ed. E. J. Young, R. K. Harrison, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 3.

85 Athanasius, ‘Letter’, ch. 10.

86 Athanasius, ‘Letter’, ch. 10.

[3] Harry P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition, and the Post-Critical Interpretation of the Psalms, vol. 218, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 112–113.

[4] Ben Witherington III, Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 5–6.

Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

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