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

Chapter 2: History of Psalms Studiespsalm” (Acts 13:33), a small indication that Psalm 2 was indeed the secondpsalm in his text.Ancient rabbinic writings give “evidence that the rabbis regarded the Psalter’ssequence of lyrics as purposefully arranged” (Mitchell 1997:29). Mitchellproceeds to cite several examples of rabbinical interpretation referring to thepreceding or following psalms as the literary context for the interpretation of apsalm. Examples include the juxtaposition of Psalms 2-3, 52-54 and 110-111.Among the church fathers, the historicity of the psalm headings wasuniversally accepted. Augustine (1956) regarded the ordering of the psalmsas both purposeful and mysterious.The Reformers’ interpretation of the psalms emphasised (a) the value of theheadings, (b) the need to understand the psalms in their historical setting and(c) the prophetic-messianic nature of the psalms, regarding David as a type ofthe Messiah. Calvin (1949), ever perceptive, regarded Psalm 1 as an editorialpreface to the Psalter. As for the arrangement of the collection, they did notaddress the question of its purposeful ordering.2.3 Historical criticismThe nineteenth century witnessed a paradigm shift in biblical research. Led bya myriad of revolutionary German thinkers, a movement away from traditional,16