Psalms Explorer Genre Definitions

I really like the Psalms Explorer and am making good use of it. I have read the "About" section that describes that the Genre Categories used broadly follow Hermann Gunkel's form-critical classification although they also use other sources. Here is the wording in the Psalms Explorer -

"Our categorization of the Psalms by genre broadly follows Hermann Gunkel’s form-critical analysis, with supplementation and modification from other sources, including the Anchor-Yale Bible and other commentaries."

What I can't find are any definitions used to describe the 7 genres the Psalms Explorer uses. It seems odd to me that none are given but perhaps I'm just missing it.

Edit: What I'm particularly interested in is understanding how the interactive differentiates the Praise and the Hymn genres. I'm soon going to preach on Psalm 103 that the interactive identifies Praise Genre but the limited research I have done seems to show that Gunkel identified this as a Hymn. This confused me. In order to discover the differences between Praise Psalms and Hymn Psalms I had to carefully look at both. In the end I discovered that most of the psalms designated as Hymns in the Psalms Explored were "Psalms of Ascents" plus Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 which also talk about going to the temple to worship. So I'm guessing that is how Faithlife differentiated the two categories. But it shouldn't be this hard to find out this information.

Has anyone else discovered definitions for the genre categories used by Faithlife in the Psalms Explorer?

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Comments

Bruce Dunning

Upon further searching I see that almost the same question was asked in 2019 in this thread but no answers were ever found.

https://community.logos.com/forums/p/181228/1048170.aspx#1048170

Surely this information must exist. Could someone from Faithlife please help?

Andrew Batishko

Surely this information must exist. Could someone from Faithlife please help?

I asked around. Unfortunately, no information beyond what you already mentioned has been documented, and no one has any direct experience to provide further detail. I'm sorry that we don't have an answer for you.

SineNomine

Unfortunately, no information beyond what you already mentioned has been documented, and no one has any direct experience to provide further detail.

Perhaps the data should now be reclassified according to a system that would be documented this time. At present, it is as if arbitrary.

Eli Evans (Logos)

Hi, Bruce.

The categorization really just reflects the collective opinion of the editors. The statement in the About is as accurate a description as we could give, but what follows is a little more about how the sausage was made if that's helpful.

We didn't provide definitions because we didn't want to embark on a thorough analysis of genre. We spent our time on analysis of form and structure instead. Sometimes you pick your battles. The definitions in Faithlife Study Bible and Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary are helpful but not definitive.

So, the sausage.

Everyone who categorizes Psalms based on their observable properties is "broadly" following Gunkel's method. Which properties you identify and how much weight you give them is the trick. I did the first categorization for the first mockup of the tool literally using Logos searching for "types of Psalms". I didn't keep good track of what sources I used because I was making a pitch, not doing original scholarship.

What I found was not a lot of agreement. Are there five types, or eight, or twenty? Yes. (I put a lot of weight on Anchor-Yale, if I recall, which I may not.)

The list was then edited by several people, John Barry & Michael Heiser among them. (This was around the same time as the Faithlife Study Bible.) I'm pretty sure one of them decided to use Gunkel to correct my cobbled-together synthesis.

This article is a useful summary of Gunkel, and indeed lists 103 as a hymn.

I can tell you the biggest challenge was coming up with one and only one categorization for each Psalm. There was some debate. Psalm 103 could debatably be categorized as a hymn, or praise, or thanksgiving.

We eventually settled on a narrow definition for "hymn" that indeed is basically as you have it: Psalms of praise with a clear occasion, possibly a festival or a ceremony. The bulk of them are songs of ascents, except Ps 15 and 24, which are listed as "temple liturgy". (You can think of the "tags" category in the interactive as the side-effects and leftovers of looking at this question — things that are on some lists and not others, or are clearly observable but not definitive, such as, "selah".

I hope that helps!

Bruce Dunning

Surely this information must exist. Could someone from Faithlife please help?

I asked around. Unfortunately, no information beyond what you already mentioned has been documented, and no one has any direct experience to provide further detail. I'm sorry that we don't have an answer for you.

Thanks so much for your efforts to try to find an answer. They are appreciated.

The categorization really just reflects the collective opinion of the editors. The statement in the About is as accurate a description as we could give, but what follows is a little more about how the sausage was made if that's helpful.

We didn't provide definitions because we didn't want to embark on a thorough analysis of genre. We spent our time on analysis of form and structure instead. Sometimes you pick your battles. The definitions in Faithlife Study Bible and Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary are helpful but not definitive.

Eli, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you careful explanation of the background of the creation of this amazing interactive. Thank you!

I appreciate the challenge of coming up with definitions in light of everything. Over the past months I've actually been trying to do an in-depth study of the various systems of categorizing the genre of the psalms and, as you say, there is not a lot of agreement. When finally choosing a system to use for my preaching series, I decided on using the categories in the Interactive but it wasn't until recently that I noticed that I could not find specific definitions used for the Interactive. Of course some Psalms such as laments are much easier to define although it is challenging when some also include elements from other genre.

In the end, though, it seems to me that there had to be some sort of general agreement about definitions for the interactive or else you could not have assigned them to a particular genre. After thinking this over some I have a couple of recommendations for you or your team to consider.

I know that this might be difficult, but I think that future users of the Interactive would appreciate you creating some sort of general guiding criteria used for the genre categories you choose for the interactive.
Expand the "About" section in the Interactive to explain a bit more of your thinking behind what you did in a similar way that you did in your response to my post. For instance, explain that you choose a narrow definition for Hymn in the way as being connected with temple liturgy would be helpful.

Please don't interpret my recommendations as complaints as my appreciation for the Interactive increases the more I use it. Thanks again for Faithlife, you and your team for creating such an amazing tool.

Eli Evans (Logos)

Happy to oblige, Bruce! I completely agree with your suggestion, too. I'm not personally very well positioned to act on interactive feedback at the moment, but I'll pass this thread along to the editorial team. Peace!

Bruce Dunning

Thanks so much Eli. Your support and understanding in this matter is encouraging.