Psalm 1, Introduction to the Psalms (1)

It’s now time to move on to the book of Psalms.  On Sunday’s our posts are always from the Psalms, working our way through all of them every 3 years and 3 months.  What we will do in these posts is strictly introductory. 

1)    Name of the Book:

a)    Tehillim (Hebrew), praise songs

b)    Psalmoi (Greek), songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument

2)    Authors of the Psalms:

Authors	#	Identified by Inscriptions
Moses	1	90
David	73	3-9,11-32,34-41,51-65,68-70,86,101,103,108-110,122,124,131,133,138-145
David	2	2 (Ac 4:25); 95 (Hb 4:7)
Solomon	2	72,127
Asaph	12	50,73-83
Korah sons	10	42,44-45,47-49,84-85,87-88
Heman	1	88
Ethan	1	89
		Identified by LXX (Septuagint)
Hezekiah	15
Jeremiah	1
Haggai	1
Zachariah	1
Ezra	1

                   The rest are referred to as "orphaned Psalms."  The LXX has some hard to understand identifications.  For example, both Haggai’s and Zechariah’s names are attached to several Psalms (e.g. 146-148).  It is not sure if they were the human authors or were involved in collecting those Psalms.  There are certainly some post-exilic Psalms and it is possible they were involved in some way in those works.