ABSTRACT
So far this study of the Psalms has been concentrated on the reading of individual poems, though we have not entirely ignored the existence of groupings which (sharing the same heading, linguistic style or themes) clearly in some substantial sense belong together. If the study is to provide an approach to reading which deals with the collection as we find it, the existence of groups of psalms is a matter which requires its own treatment. It was observed in Chapter 5 that, while in recent years some work has been done on these groups, by far the dominant approach has been to analyse individual psalms using a broadly form-critical paradigm, often accompanied by the assumption that one of the ‘recovered festivals’ can serve as an explanatory device.
