Psalms and Psychology
Final Paper: The Psalms and Psychology A main function of the Psalter in our modern church is to show the raw emotion that the writers’ prayers to God embody. Because of the depths of emotion that are present in the Psalms, they help Christians to see the relational aspect of the faith in a different way. In the Psalter, Christians see that God wants us to share our whole being with him; the Psalms show Christians that they can express the diversity of emotions that humans have with God. The study of psychology can be useful in giving further insight to the authors’ minds and how the human element of the authorship effects the Psalter. Looking at the Davidic Psalms, one sees a variety of the emotions and genres; The field of psychology can be used to give deeper insight into the nature of the Psalms when looking at the range of emotion present there. Therefore, a psychological analysis of the Davidic Psalms gives a full picture of the different emotions and genres and their nature as it relates to the Psalter. In looking at the Psalms, the importance of language is extremely prevalent. The study of psycholinguistics, the psychology of our language as it interacts with the human mind, is particularly interesting when it comes to the Psalter because the Psalms involve an individual pouring out their heart to God (Sternberg 361). The Davidic Psalms manifest themselves as personal prayers and corporate hymns; They have a significant personal human element, but they are also part of the Christian cannon, which is considered to be the Word of God. Because of this dichotomy, should the language of the Psalms be attributed to a human emotional response to earthly situations that they direct towards God, or should the language be understood as God giving the authors of the Psalms the words to write down to instruct believers how to present their emotions to God? The answer to this quandary depends on the individuals interpretation of “divine inspiration”, but this
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