Psalms

The history of this book, too, is similar to the history of the book of Job. We do not find any documentary evidence to show a particular man to be its writer. The period of collection of all the psalms is also not known. Whether the names of the Psalms are Prophetic or not is also unknown. The ancient Christians have different opinions about it.

The writers, Origen, Chrysostome and Augustine believe it to have been written by the Prophet David himself. On the other hand, writers like Hilary, Athanasius, Jerome and Eusebius have strictly refuted this. Horne says:

“Undoubtedly the former statement is altogether wrong."

According to the opinion of the latter group, more than thirty psalms are from unknown authors. Ten psalms from 90 to 99 are supposed to be from Moses and a seventy-one paslms are claimed to be from David . Psalm 88 is atteibuted to Heman and 89 to Ethan, while Psalms 72 and 177 are said to be from Solomon, And three psalms are believed to be from Jeduthun and one hundred and twenty psalms from Asaph , but some Christians refute that Psalms 74 and 79 are written by him. Eleven psalms are supposed to have been written by three sons of kore.

Some writers even think that the author of these psalms to the various writers concerned, while yet others of the psalms were written by another unknown person. Calmat says that only forty-five psalms were written by David, while the rest are by other people.

The ancient Jewish scholars enumerate the following names as the writers of the Psalms:

the Prophets Adam, Abraham, Moses; and Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and the three sons of Kore. David only having collected them togther.

According to them David, himself is not the author of any of the Psalms; he is just the collector of them.

Horne said that the judgment of modern Christian and Jewish scholars is that this book was written by the following authors: the Prophets Moses, David and Solomon; and Asaph, Aeman, Ethan, Jeduthun and the three sons of kore.

The same contradiction and confusion is found regarding the period of its compilation.

Some scholars hold them to have been written and compiled in the time of David; some believed that they were collected by some friends of Hzekiah in his period; while some others think that they were compiled in different periods. Similar differences are also expressed about the names of the Psalms. Some claim that they are revealed, while others think that someone who was not a prophet had called them with these names.

Psalm 72, verse 20 says, ``the Prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended. ``This verse has been omitted in the Arabic translations apparently with the purpose of supporting the opinion of the first group that the whole Book of Psalms was written by the Prophet David. On the other hand it is also possible that this verse might have been added later to support the second group’s opinion that the Prophet David was not the author of this book. In both cases the distortion of the text is proved either by omission of this verse or by addition of it.