Which Psalms were written by David?

Answer 1

Christians believe the following are the Psalms composed by David: Psalms 3-9, 11-32, 34- 41, 51-66, 68-70, 86, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131, 138-145.

Some Jews believe all of the Psalms were authored by David.

Answer

Many of the psalms are traditionally attributed to David. However, Bruce Feiler and others say that scholars agree that the writing of the Psalms only began in the Babylonian Exile. Modern scholars no longer see Israel in the tenth century BCE as the sophisticated regional power imagined to have produced complex urban literature such as the psalms, as Ze'ev Herzog says, "Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by The Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom." Some scholars state that David did not write any of the psalms.

Answer

While many of the Psalms are traditionally attributed to King David, scholars say that the Psalms are a genre unknown at the time David is believed to have lived. They say that the Psalms were really written over a period of two hundred years during and after the Babylonian Exile. On this view the Psalms written by David form an empty list.

Answer:

The Psalms may be divided into three groups.

1) Those that begin with the words "A Psalm of David" or similar expressions.

2) Those that contain no name of an author.

3) Those that have a name other than David's.

According to Jewish tradion, David authored the first two of the above groups, which is the great majority of the Psalms. The third group was arranged in the Book of Psalms by David, though he didn't author them directly (Talmud, Bava Bathra 14b).

Answer 2

Many of the psalms are traditionally attributed to David - in fact, at one stage Judaism attributed all the psalms to King David.. However, Bruce Feiler and others say that scholars agree that the writing of the Psalms only began in the Babylonian Exile. Modern scholars no longer see Israel in the tenth century BCE as the sophisticated regional power imagined to have produced complex urban literature such as the psalms, as Ze'ev Herzog says, "Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom." The consensus is that David did not write any of the psalms.

Answer 3

According to tradition, King David gave us the Book of Psalms. Seventy-three of the 150 bear his name, and tradition states that the unattributed ones are also from him (Talmud, Berakhot 9b).

Concerning those Psalms that have the names of other authors, tradition teaches that we may thank David for them too (Talmud, Bava Bathra 14b). This is because it was he who recorded them in their permanent form and in a single book. If not for King David, those Psalms would have gone lost.

See also:

Psalm 23

The purpose of the Psalms