Introduction to The Book of Psalms

This collection of religious poems is known in Judaism as “The
Book of Praises.”  Among Christians, it is called “The Book of
Psalms.”  The word “psalm” is a Greek word meaning a song
sung to musical accompaniment.  The Book of Psalms is often
referred to as the Psalter.

According to Charles Ryrie, the Book of Psalms is itself divided
into five sub-books, the length of each more or less determined
by the length of ancient scrolls.  Each of the five books within
the Book of Psalms would fit on one scroll, just as each of the
five books of the Law would.

Book I: Psalms 1-41.
Book II: Psalms 42-72.
Book III: Psalms 73-89.
Book IV: Psalms 90-106.
Book V: Psalms 107-150.

The numbering of the Psalms in the Vulgate is slightly different
from Dr. Ryrie’s divisions above.  The Vulgate Psalter
combines Psalms 9 and 10 from standard English translations.
Psalm 147, in turn, is divided in the Vulgate into two separate
Psalms.  Thus, many English favorites, such as Psalm 23, are
numbered differently in the Latin.  I have added the standard
English numbering to the beginnings of each of the Psalms
effected by this difference, for the reader’s convenience.

The work, originally written in Hebrew, was translated into
Greek in the 3rd Century before Christ.  In the 3rd Century of
the Common Era, the great Christian scholar Origen created
The Hexapla, a multi-columned version of what we know of as
The Old Testament, as a way of correcting the errors that had
crept into the text at the hands of copyists through the
centuries.

Jerome, who translated the Old Testament into Latin between
383 and 405 CE, used Origen’s Hexapla in creating his
translations.  Jerome’s text, then, represents the high-water
mark of classical, Latin-based, biblical scholarship.  It became
the standard Bible of the Western church for several hundred
years.

There are two versions of the Psalter associated with Jerome’s
translations.  In the first version, he revised and corrected an
existing Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin,” translation of the
Septuagint, the earlier Greek translation, which had become
the Bible of the Christian church.  Not totally satisfied, he
decided to craft another translation from the Hebrew itself.  
This decision led Jerome, already a middle-aged man, to study
Hebrew at the feet of Jewish rabbis, in order to pass Hebrew
scripture on more faithfully to Christian readers.

Both versions of the Psalms survived, each one playing the
prominent role in various different locations.  In Gaul, present-
day France, Jerome’s Septuagint translation of the Psalms was
used most commonly in the Old Testament.  Alcuin, an English
scholar called to Charlemagne’s court, standardized the so-
called Gallican Psalter for the Church at large.  It became the
definitive Vulgate Psalter thereafter, though the other
translation also survived.  

Because the Gallican Psalter was based on the Septuagint, it
more accurately reflects the Book of Psalms as the first
generation of Hellenistic Christianity would have known it.  The
Hebrew-based Psalter would have been unknown to non-
Jewish Christians of the early centuries.  For such Christians,
the Bible existed in Greek, rather than Hebrew.

Some ask, why translate a translation?  What advantage is
there in studying the Latin, when the original language,
Hebrew, is still available?

The answer lies in the historical nature of the Bible.  It exists in
its original languages, certainly.  Yet it also existed profoundly
in Greek, Latin, and many other languages as well.

To understand historical persons and events more clearly, it
helps to understand scripture as they did.  Most of Jesus’
contemporaries and followers knew the Bible in Greek, rather
than in Hebrew.  Later, when Rome’s empire divided and
Western Europe was increasingly cut off from the mainstream
of ancient civilizations, the Bible existed in Latin.  

An illustration may help.  Though the book of Psalms had
existed for centuries in Hebrew, it existed in Hellenistic culture
from the 3rd Century B.C.E., as the Septuagint, the Bible of
most of the early Christian Church.

The Greek word “Christ” translates the Hebrew Masiach,
meaning “anointed one,” or “king.”  Thus, the Septuagint
Psalter, rendered by Jerome into the Latin Gallican Psalter, is
filled with Christological references.  

Reading the Septuagint or Jerome’s translation of it, one sees
immediately how early Christian preachers could speak about
Christ using the Psalter as a source.  

Modern English translators for many centuries have taken
pains not to use the Greek word “Christ” in the Psalter.  “Christ”
has taken on too specifically Christian a meaning, obviously, to
render it a fair translation of the Hebrew original.

Nevertheless, “Christ” was the word used, both in Greek-
speaking synagogues and early Christian ecclesias.  They
literally could not avoid talking about “Christ” if they talked
about the Psalter at all.

Such a sense of the Psalms as an intensely Christological book
has vanished, largely, from contemporary thought.  

Yet the Greek and Latin texts use the word Christ throughout.  
Perhaps reading their version of the Psalms will give more
profound insight into who Christ is, at least as the original core
of Greek and Latin speakers understood Him.


                         John Cunyus
                         Dallas, Texas
                       January 1, 2009
ISBN # 978-0-9644609-9-7
English Edition

ISBN # 978-0-9644609-8-0
Latin-English Edition

©2009, John G. Cunyus
All Rights to the English Translation and
Commentary Reserved.
All Rights to Cover art Reserved.
www.JohnCunyus.com.  

Latin text from “The Latin Vulgate.”  Biblia Sacra
Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, Fourth Revised
Edition, edited by Roger Gryson,
© 1994 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Used by permission.
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