Why does Psalm 14 appear in the Bible twice?

[toj.cc]WildBillKickoff

[toj.cc]WildBillKickoff

New Member
A serious question that demands a serious answer.

Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 are almost identical. Quoted below:

Psalm 14 said:
1 The fool says in his heart, ";God does not exist.";
They are corrupt; their actions are revolting.
There is no one who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race
to see if there is one who is wise,
one who seeks God. 3 All have turned away;
all alike have become corrupt.
There is no one who does good,
not even one.

4 Will evildoers never understand?
They consume my people as they consume bread;
they do not call on the Lord. 5 Then they will be filled with terror,
for God is with those who are righteous. 6 You [sinners] frustrate the plans of the afflicted,
but the Lord is his refuge. 7 Oh, that Israel's deliverance would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores His captive people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
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Psalm 53 said:
1 The fool says in his heart, ";God does not exist.";
They are corrupt, and they do vile deeds.
There is no one who does good. 2 God looks down from heaven on the human race
to see if there is one who is wise
and who seeks God. 3 Everyone has turned aside;
they have all become corrupt.
There is no one who does good,
not even one. 4 Will evildoers never understand?
They consume My people as they consume bread;
they do not call on God. 5 Then they will be filled with terror-
terror like no other -
because God will scatter
the bones of those who besiege you.
You will put them to shame,
for God has rejected them. 6 Oh, that Israel's deliverance would come from Zion!
When God restores His captive people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
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As you can see, the only significant difference is that 14:6 and 53:5b, where 14:6 gives an example of how the subject is wicked, while 53:5b gives a consequence.

Did God repeat this message because it is that important? Was it simply a case of the folks that compiled Psalms accidentally repeating a song, like "Amazing Grace" being included twice in a hymnal? Does this call into question the infallibility of Scripture? Is Psalm 53 a later revision by David of one of his psalms, or is Psalm 14 the revised version?
 
Could you please state what translation you are referring to, and in that same vein, have you checked other translations?
 
Looks to me as if two versions of a Psalm (possibly popular in different regions) were added without being reconciled into one.

Honestly - the composition of the bible wasn't a divine process, it was a human editing process.
 
You may also want to look at Psalm 40 & Psalm 70

Psalm 40
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.

14 May all who seek to take my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.

15 May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
be appalled at their own shame.

16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"The LORD be exalted!"

17 Yet I am poor and needy;
may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O my God, do not delay.
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Psalm 70
1 Hasten, O God, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.

2 May those who seek my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.

3 May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
turn back because of their shame.

4 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"Let God be exalted!"

5 Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Click to expand...

You may also want to examine Psalms 57, 60 and 108
 
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Eon said:
Looks to me as if two versions of a Psalm (possibly popular in different regions) were added without being reconciled into one.

Honestly - the composition of the bible wasn't a divine process, it was a human editing process.
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Sorry to side track the topic but would you have any good articles or recommended readings about such topics...I'd be interested


Back on topic...nice oberservation, I'm going to check my bibles..english and non-english.
 
Before going on, please remember this is a part of the ToS

3.While it is understood that not all members will share a common belief in Christ, members will respect one another and respect the integrity of God's word.
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Genesis1315
 
There are also repeated verses in the book of Proverbs.

Why? Because those books were collected proverb by proverb or psalm by psalm, and often different collections were lumped together and the version added was changed slightly from the version already in the collection.

In the case of the Psalms, given that they were originally musical pieces, words or music might be altered as a result of inspiration or improvisation.
 
In regards to Kraniac's post, I found an interesting bit of info relating specifically to these two Psalms.

Psalm 14 uses the word YHWH for God, while Psalm 53 uses Elohim. This indicates an origin from the Kingdom of Judah for Psalm 14 and the kingdom of Israel for Psalm 53. Basically, Psalms 3-41 can all be traced back to Judah, while Psalms 52-72 can be traced to Israel based on this convention (pulled from several websites that concurred).

I'll conjecture that what happened was that when the book of Psalms was compiled, both the Judaic and Israelite version of the psalm were included because their collections were simply combined, and not edited for repeat content. This would also explain the similarities between psalms 40 and 70. DV, I'll have to look into the reasoning behind 57, 60, and 108.

And thanks Ark for having me check translations, or I wouldn't have caught this.
 
kraniac said:
There are also repeated verses in the book of Proverbs.

Why? Because those books were collected proverb by proverb or psalm by psalm, and often different collections were lumped together and the version added was changed slightly from the version already in the collection.

In the case of the Psalms, given that they were originally musical pieces, words or music might be altered as a result of inspiration or improvisation.
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Are you saying God needed a better editor?
 
Dark Virtue said:
Are you saying God needed a better editor?
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I would not say that. I would say that imperfect man is capabe of making mistakes. Imagine if God had made a mistake...Like creating man before He created the Earth... God does not make mistakes, Man does.
 
It would seem to me that if I were an omnimax being and I put my sacred word in the hands of my mistake prone creation to pass on to future generations...that would be a mistake.

Deut 9:10 And the LORD delivered unto me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spoke with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

Who PHYSICALLY wrote the ten commandments? GOD

Why do you think HE wrote them? Maybe so they wouldn't get mistranslated or misinterpreted?

Why didn't he write the Bible?

Why was it necessary to filter it through so many levels that it is now impossible to tell whether it is divine or if it's a myth? Why was it necessary to put a fallible, human, political committee in charge of deciding what writings made up the Bible? Why didn't God do it himself, so there would be no margin of error?

Are you saying that the Bible, written, composed and edited by Man, contains errors and mistranslations? Because if you are, that my friend, is a mistake on the grandest of scales.
 
Psalm 14, which is closely allied with Psalm 53, is a wisdom psalm attributed to David. It speaks of the foolishness of living as if God did not exist. The Psalm has three movements: 1) vs:1-3; a description of the pervasiveness of evil: 2) vs:4-6; an assertion that final judgement is coming: 3) vs:7; a prayer for God's kingdom.
Psalm 53 is a recasting of Ps. 14 with only slight differences, particularly in the ending. Its structure is as follows: 1) vs:1; an announcement of the judgement of a fool: 2) vs:2,3; the Lord's examination of people: 3) vs:4,5; the judgement of the Lord: 4) vs:6; a prayer for the salvation of Israel.

Hope this helps :)
 
Dark Virtue said:
It would seem to me that if I were an omnimax being and I put my sacred word in the hands of my mistake prone creation to pass on to future generations...that would be a mistake.

Deut 9:10 And the LORD delivered unto me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spoke with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

Who PHYSICALLY wrote the ten commandments? GOD

Why do you think HE wrote them? Maybe so they wouldn't get mistranslated or misinterpreted?

Why didn't he write the Bible?

Why was it necessary to filter it through so many levels that it is now impossible to tell whether it is divine or if it's a myth? Why was it necessary to put a fallible, human, political committee in charge of deciding what writings made up the Bible? Why didn't God do it himself, so there would be no margin of error?

Are you saying that the Bible, written, composed and edited by Man, contains errors and mistranslations? Because if you are, that my friend, is a mistake on the grandest of scales.
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Ah, I see I was not clear in my intentions.
God did give His inspired word to an imperfect man. This is true.
However, the orginal, I am talking the original written works are without error.
however, with as many translations or paraphrases that have been distributed today, it would not surprise me if there are errors. Translating from one language to anotehr is not as easy as it would seem. (I know, I worked with Wycliff Bible translators at one point in time.)

Do I think that the translation of the Bible that is entirely to rap is the inspired written word of God? No way. Was the Bible written in Rap? No.
Honestly I do not agree with any Bible that paraphrases the Word of God.

Can the Bible contain errors and miscalculations? No. God is perfect, therefore the Words He intructed to be written down, Or as you pointed out Dark Virtue, Wrote down Himself are perfect.

Why do the verses seem to repeat? Well why is that so many songs today have similer lyrics? Maybe because they were composed at differant times and the way it was written made for a good stanza? Or perhaps they were written by differant authors? I honestly have no idea. Once I have a Time machine that goes backwards in time instead of forward, I'll let you know. :p
 
the_great_eskimo_pie said:
Why do the verses seem to repeat? Well why is that so many songs today have similer lyrics? Maybe because they were composed at differant times and the way it was written made for a good stanza? Or perhaps they were written by differant authors? I honestly have no idea. Once I have a Time machine that goes backwards in time instead of forward, I'll let you know. :p
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That's kind of the point here-- my personal conviction, by faith, is that the Bible is the true and unaltered word of God. I too have no good explanation, theologically, of why virtually the same Psalm would appear twice. To me, that's not a faith shattering thing-- the old fallback is "God must want us to take notice if it's in there twice." This implies that some parts of God's word are more important than others-- and Jesus himself said as much when He told us what the greatest and second greatest commandments were.

I've done a bit of research and was able to find out how, historically, these psalms came to be there twice. Now, the more important question to believers-- what does God want us to learn from these Psalms that is so important? (Incidentally, TGEP, the psalms are both titled as Psalms of David.)
 
Psalms 3 to 40 are the Yawistic Psalms of David
Psalms 51 to 72 are the Elohistic Psalms of David

You will find many psalms in those two groups very similiar with the only differences really being the use of the name of God in the first set and using Elohim in the second set. They are simply different versions of the same song. I highly doubt anybody here listens to a song on the radio that differs from the song they have on their CD collection and starts running around claiming that said group needs to get a better editor. Anybody who was doing so would look foolish, wouldn't they?
 
Gen, I've agreed that I won't say that Yahweh is deliberately cruel or that he has lied to you all (which is easy, because I don't believe that), but I never agreed that the Bible was the inerrant word of Yahweh. I thought we came to an agreement that questioning the authenticity of the bible was legitimate on this forum? I thought it wasn't so much ideas that were forbidden on here - more the way that they are expressed is controlled?

Now, .s3k3r. here is an interesting website on the subject.

http://www.christianseparatist.org/sixth/errancy.html
 
Hmmm.

What's the point in writing down, or as you claim, to transcribe a perfect document only to lose that document and be left with incomplete, mistranslated works?

Do these perfect documents still exist somewhere?

How do you address Christians that claim the Bible as we know it, is the inerrant, perfect work of God?

If portions of the Bible are less than perfect, is it possible that they are outright wrong? Could portions of the Bible be prejudiced or slanted by human editors?

And more importantly, how do you know which portions are correct? I don't see how you can take this view and claim the Bible is anywhere near a perfect book.
 
Eon said:
Looks to me as if two versions of a Psalm (possibly popular in different regions) were added without being reconciled into one.

Honestly - the composition of the bible wasn't a divine process, it was a human editing process.
Click to expand...

Irrelevant. Why do they need to be reconciled into one if they were popular in different regions?

Shania Twain recently released three CDs, all the same same song, but with different tempo's and music to reflect differing tastes in music. I suppose we can conclude from that God doesn't exist?

I'm sorry, there is no plausable link between a variation of a song and the divinity of the bible.
 
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