Saints' Discussion Forums

                     Did David write psalms only when he was the King of Israel?

                                   Acts 4 : 25 states that Psalm 2 is by David.     

It's good to read references to the Old Testament in the New!

'I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, that receive glory one of another: and the glory which is of God only, you seek not? Think not that I will accuse you to the Father, there is that accuseth you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you did believe Moses: you would perhaps believe me also. For of me he hath written. And if you do not believe his writings: how will you believe my words?'

St. John 5:43-47

                       Acts 2 : 25-28 states that Psalm 16 is by David.

               Acts 2:34-35 states that Psalm 110 is by David.         :violin: :violin:

When I was a little kid in Catholic School, (I was not receiving catechism, I was one of the non-Catholic students)
I remember picking up on the Old Testament/New Testament  parallel stories, references and things done to fulfill
Prophesies. Of course I didn't know these terms at the time, I just knew the passages were familiar but in different
Parts of the bible. ???

It was very confusing to me, hearing these stories and references that were in the Old and New Testament.  It was gratifying to
Get the answers years later in RCIA :D

                       Christians believe David composed Psalms 3 to 9 and 11 to 32.

                            The first psalm of David's that we find is Psalm 3, written when David fled from   
                              his son Absalom. Are David's psalms organized in chronological order or by themes?

Many thanks for another great thread; this got me to reviewing the life of David, which I haven't looked at much for years.  Probably you know David first entered the palace of Saul as harpist (I Sam 16:14-23, according to NAB Dictionary-Concordance-which I highly recommend) when it seems likely he may have been writing some Psalms.  I hope to report soon that I've looked further into this.

I've had a 2-volume Daily Bible Study set on Psalms in my bookshelf next to my desk for probably almost 20 years, which I suppose I've peeked into maybe a half dozen times, but never marked or seriously read.  You have motivated me to get it out, and I am very grateful to you, even though the author George Knight was a Protestant pastor.  Curiously, one of the first things that just jumped out at me as I scanned volume one is that Psalm 72 says it's of Solomon, but verse 20 says it's the last of the Psalms of David.  Later there are about 15 more Psalms (or miktams or maskils) of David. (Same as my NAB, but not noticed and I wonder why.)  I try sometimes to remember the adage about what curiosity did to the cat, but much of that old "common sense" I don't think is very wise (like tattle tale, sticks and stones, boys will be boys and more).  Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, Sirach are much wiser.

It's really great to hear you're becoming interested in these things! :D May I recommend the Catena Aurea as a source of scripture studies, you can download what of it is in English from Saints' Books. Also we have Corneius a Lapide's works for download. These should prove very useful for you. There are also many other useful books.

For spiritual subjects as a Catholic you should avoid using non-Catholic sources as references, due to the mix of errors within. Though one can often see through them, one never can see through everything, and some of brushes off on a person. There is some amount of discernment to do with Catholic sources too as nothing is perfect, at least these cut down a lot of the chaff. Do put aside that NAB for a Douai Rheims. The commentary in the NAB Bible itself is often quite terrible. Anything after the year of Our Lord 1960, forget it, there are too many problems, I recommend only referring to earlier sources normally.

You can find these if you look for them and you'll find a lot of treasure!

Many thanks for you comment and suggestions, as well as all your efforts here.  I shall follow your recommendations and hope to comment further soon.

At home I find only a 1941 NT revision of the Challoner-Rheims Version, I think I have a full Challoner but it must be at camp (unavailable until the mountain thaws).  I'm trying to do my NT reading in the Challoner, but it has much fewer scripture cross references, and almost no commentary.  Is there any particular revision you recommend?

I fear I am nearly overwhelmed by your wonderful recommendations of the two big Scripture commentaries.  I want them both, but wish I could just access on line rather than download.  I found the St Thomas Aquinas but it seems I just have to scroll blindly (forever) without any index or sub-division.  Are there best versions of these?  If I download, will they significantly slow down access to either my internal or external drives?  I'm very sorry to sound negative.  They are fascinating.

I generally advise downloading the PDF files available on Saints' Books to your own computer, perhaps to your desktop or a folder on it. They will load faster and flip pages faster, especially in the case of the facsimiles rather than the retyped versions, with those it's much better than reading them on the Internet. :D They do not take up any significant hard drive space.

There are fascsimile versions of the first two books of the Catena Aurea as well as the retyped version. Would you be interested in this sort? These are the each page photographed instead of each page retyped version.

Some PDF viewers let you place books in a side by side two page at once mode that can be easier to read.

You can also print out significant portions of some of them if you have a laser printer with enough toner. I'm not sure how fast an ink jet printer would run out of ink on the other hand. Usually you can print much more cost effectively in black and white with a laser printer.

I think some of these writings can be purchased too in print, though I have not looked. Sometimes there are proper editions othertimes there are lower quality but perhaps acceptable facsimile copies people sell of the printed PDFs.

One should prioritize first finding the most literal english translation possible, which I think is currently the original Douai, and reading the Vulgate if you can, or reading the translation side by side with it, as in the end the Latin is going to be the most exact you can find and a good reference for looking up word meanings. Holy Scripture in English and Latin, and a commentary all opened up are a splendid preparation for reading and study. Some of the commentaries have the English translated in them too, and so are more portable. It is also not hard to pick up Latin words, as many English words are derived from them. Some people would not be happy with the old English spelling but you can pick it up pretty quickly if you put in a little effort. There are also modernized spelling versions of the original Douai. There used to be a partially modernized version on a university website but I believe it is gone now.

I am very glad to hear you are so happy with the commentaries! I am as well. They are of a special character.

I think it is not too hard to know the meaning of many of the Latin words below here:

1    In the beginning God created heauen and earth.
   In principio creavit Deus cælum et terram.
2    And the earth was voide & vacant, and darkenes was vpon the face of the deapth: and the Spirite of God moued ouer the waters.
   Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebræ erant super faciem abyssi : et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.
3    And God said: Be light made. And light was made.
   Dixitque Deus : Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.
4    And God saw the light that it was good: & he divided the light from the darkness.
   Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona : et divisit lucem a tenebris.

And reading them you learn more about the Church for example 'tenebris' immediately brings to mind 'tenebrae'.

Thanks for trying Cyril! :D It looks like there was an edition in that year based on the Challoner Douai.

Following is the thread I have started looking at for the St Thomas Aquinas list of Gospel commentaries:
[mod edit: see announcements re: links]
There are so many commentators listed that it makes me wish that St Thomas might have written only his own- which I suppose he may well have and I just don't know about it.  I find myself spending as much time wondering who it was that made the comment as I do thinking about the comment itself.  But it has been fascinating just reading something so old, and so reverent.

St. John Chrysostom, St. Augistine, thankfully many of their writings have survived.

Just a reminder there's a no links policy, as per the announcements.

If you can gather some of the source books that the commentaries are drawn from you'll really have quite a library!

The Psalms were meant to be prayed and memorized and served as a general means of instruction for prayer and doctrine.
The Psalms are said to contain all emotions and in Lectio Divina they become the mouth of the Christian and the song of the Church.