The
Book of Psalms is the only divinely inspired book of songs available for use
and should be respected and used in the light of the fact it is the word of God
concerning musical praise. There are
several psalmists who contributed to the Psalter, but the church musician is
reminded that the real author of the collection is the blessed Holy Spirit.
Although
it is sometimes astonishingly purported that David penned the entire Book of
Psalms, it is known that he did not since the inscriptions (superscriptions or
headings) of the psalms, which are a part of the original compositions, name
several other authors. Also, many of the
psalms were written after David's death.
It is important that the church musician realizes the seriousness of
regarding the inscriptions as either spurious or as later additions of the
redactors of Scripture. There is no
conclusive evidence that any of the inscriptions were added unofficially at a
later date as uninspired material. On
the contrary, they contain the te'amim
and would have been chanted just like any other part of the Psalm texts.
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