Smith DTh Thesis (final).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

Chapter 1: Introductionreferences. I make no presupposition as to whether an individual or agroup served as the final editor(s). 3• Masculine gender language is used without prejudice for references toGod and individual psalms writers. I follow the biblical pattern of usingmasculine terms to refer to God without implying that the Lord hasnatural gender. In the case of the psalm writers, all composers namedin the Scriptures were males. It is likely that the authors of Psalms 3-8would have been men, but no prejudice is intended by the decision touse masculine terms for the psalm authors.1.7 HypothesisThe researcher expects the study of Psalms 3-8 to reveal surface-levelredaction, but not deep-level redaction. That is, the final redactors groupedpsalms that were in some respect similar (e.g., sharing key words, themes,3 The general consensus within the field is that the final form of the Psalter evolved over timewith multiple editorial hands at work in different stages of compilation on different collections(see, for example, Wilson 1985a; Anderson 1994; McFall 2000; Vos and Olivier 2002; Hegg2003). In his analysis of the evidence from Qumran, Anderson (1994:219-225) demonstratesconvincingly that the order of Books I-III was fixed much earlier than the order of Books IV-V.9