of collections” and assumes a deliberate editorial arrangement.43 We tentatively posit a final, settled arrangement of the Psalter before the end of the first-century CE (ca. 90) or even into the early second-century. We know that the psalms were widely read and sung by the first-century Christian churches and in the Jewish synagogues that were scattered throughout the ancient Roman world.
This conscious arrangement of the Psalter, and its ready inclusion into the Hebrew canon, may be asserted as having come about rather early in the canonical process. We posit a second-century BCE time frame. The canon–as we now have it in our bibles—was not yet closed for all Judaism in the first-century BCE. Some of the psalms found at Qumran show that the last third of the Psalms was the section with the greatest textual fluidity. These manuscripts (4QPsf = 4Q8811; Qps a-b = 11Q 5–6)44 include additional apocryphal psalms, some of them known from the Greek Psalter (Ps 151) or the Syriac Psalter (Pss 151, 154, and 155). Some scholars view these Qumran psalters as biblical or “canonical,” all of which suggest that the number and sequence of the canonical psalms had not yet been definitively established in the Qumran period. Others view these scrolls as a secondary compilation for liturgical use or as library editions.45 However, this arrangement hinges on several other considerations relevant to our study.
The implication that follows is that both Psalms 1 and 2, the Introduction, and Psalms 146–150, the final Doxology, were added late in the development of the entire book. A late post-exilic setting in the Persian period of the restoration and the rebuilding of the walls of the temple under Ezra-Nehemiah can reasonably be postulated. This does not mean, however, that they were the last of the compositions to be included in the collection. Psalm 2 alone can reasonably be set in the tenth-century BCE and Psalm 1 “is more than an introduction to the Psalter; it is a precis of the Book of Psalms.46. This assessment of the shaping of the Psalter implies that the canon of the Hebrew scriptures was open for a very long time. We know now that the Hebrew canon was still quite fluid at the time of the LXX and included the book of Daniel, thought to be one of the last entries into the Hebrew canon. This is significant for determining a relative time of the closing of the canon of Hebrew scripture by the community of scribal authorities, toward the end of the first-century CE.
The earliest attestations of the Hebrew canon as a list come from the second half of the first century C. E. Between 250 B.C.E. and 50 C. E., it seems that there was no canon in the sense of a numerus fixus of holy books. The widely accepted doctrine of the era of revelation permitted discussion about the authenticity, antiquity, and authorship of specific books.47
But the closing of the Hebrew canon, which we postulate as ca. 90 to 125 CE does not preclude the Psalter’s continued shaping and editing right up to that time. Final canonization and the editing of the texts are two very different activities; and the consideration of the text of the Hebrew Bible as being in some sense sacred prior to canonicity is not a contradictory position.
The Psalms did not become “inspired scripture” the moment they were canonized. Indeed, they had functioned in the community as sacred songs for a very long time. They were received into the ancient canon as the primary witness to the great deeds of יהוה by a people who had sung and prayed them over many centuries. Indeed, they had functioned liturgically long before they were written compositions; before they were read, they were sung; before they were collected; before they were arranged; before they were edited; indeed, before they were text, they had nurtured and consoled the wider community of the faithful. Inspiration is implied in the Hebrew bible.
It only became a focus of the Christian church in the second and third centuries CE as it struggled with establishing its own criteria as to what constitutes an “inspired text.” Determining just how specific words come to be “enscripturated” is a process that takes place over an extended period of time. What is clear is that the early Christian church understood the Hebrew bible to be sacred scripture by its repeated use of the moniker “it is written.” That the Psalms were used widely throughout early Christian worship is attested by no less than Luke, Peter, Paul and the other evangelists. The Hebrew bible translated into Greek (LXX) was, for the early church, the book of the “law and the prophets.”
That the psalms were considered authoritative witness by the Jews prior to the closing of the canon, is widely attested. The word canon means a reed or rule; a standard to be agreed on; a settled text. An early version of the book of Psalms (second-century BCE) gives every appearance of having been readily received into the Hebrew canon as sacred text of Scripture. It quickly secured the mantle of unparalleled authoritative and faithful witness to the historic acts and words of יהוה in the life of the ancient people of God. This is thoroughly demonstrated and it’s witnessed throughout the Christian scriptures in the church. Indeed, the first scriptures of the early Christians was the Hebrew bible. Its searching use of the Psalms bore witness to Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises to all humanity. The promised Messiah was the subject of their investigations. Without the witness of the Psalms as scripture, this pattern of promise and fulfillment would not be nearly so transparent to the new community of God.
The two major Greek translations of the “Old Testament”, the LXX third-century BCE and the ninth-century CE Theodotion Text, 48 both include additional materials taken from the book of Daniel, and others which were relegated to the Apocrypha. In both the Hebrew and Protestant bibles, the First Testament books consist of 39 entries. Although they are arranged in a differing order, both canons contain exactly the same authorized books. These differ from their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox counterparts, both of whom admit deutero-canonical books into their canons of Holy Scripture. The Protestant Anglican Communion admits some few apocryphal books for the purpose of reading and edification, but not for the constructing and establishing of any doctrine. This is a position that is theologically unique to the Anglican Communion—and in turn, the Episcopal Church in the United States.
Additionally, manuscript fragments of the prophecy of Daniel were also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in three caves at Qumran including apocalyptic texts that employ language reminiscent of Daniel 7 and 12. The earliest date of the Dead Sea Scrolls is placed in the second-century BCE. The inclusion of sacred scriptures into the Hebrew canon occurs later than the LXX, which includes both of these books and is relatively fixed by the time of the council at Jamnia, ca. 90 CE.49 There are substantial differences in the Hebrew biblical canon, and that found in the Greek and Latin and modern Roman Catholic Bibles regarding the status and use of apocryphal books and their inclusion into the Hebrew canon of sacred scripture. These so-called deutero-canonical writings, with only one or two exceptions, are extant only in Greek and do not form part of the Hebrew canon. Further support may be garnered from the Dead Sea Scrolls where one may compare the arrangement of the Psalter to that found in the Masoretic Text (MT), the stabilization of which appear to take place in two distinct stages:
Psalms 1–89 (or thereabouts) prior to the first century BCE, and Psalms 90 onwards toward the end of the first century CE. The scrolls strongly suggest that during the entire Qumran period Psalms 1–89 were virtually finalized as a collection while Psalms 90 and beyond remained much more fluid. 50
For Christians, the value of the Psalter of course, lies chiefly in the relationship between the Hebrew bible and the Christian scriptures. Rather than resorting to analysis alone, the Psalms call for synthesis and constantly challenge the mind and the heart of the serious reader. Discussion of the shape of the book of Psalms cannot afford to overlook what this combination of earlier and later segments into a final form was intended to signify. An intentional and purposeful editorial arrangement and a collection of collections in the final shaping of the Psalter is clearly at work, bringing it to the final form we have today. The Psalms are normally assumed to be the poetic constructions of some of the more famous individuals in Israel’s history. But this is not necessarily accurate because the authorship of the various psalms is now thought to be a largely anonymous enterprise and the actual identity of any of the individual poets is now considered highly speculative.
These particular 150 poetic compositions (there were thousands of psalm compositions produced
