Talk:Psalm 51

Author author!
I know there's little scholarly support for the entire book of Psalms being written by David, but is this really one of the Psalms that higher criticism attributes to someone else? Is a specific citation available? Wesley 03:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Basically, higher criticism splits the psalms into large groups, roughly 4 or 5 +psalm 151. It tends to believe that each group existed as an earlier seperate work, and that some of the psalms are rival versions of one another (one in one work, the other within another). It is generally believed that none of these groups were by david. For example, "by the rivers of babylon" is clearly written after the date David would be required to live. Some psalms even indicate the real author, or collector by name (although this is less obvious in texts that are just a collection of psalms, e.g. for liturgical use). 07:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

14 years later. Can we baldly say "It was composed by David"?--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 00:47, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * This has already been stated in the lead and main text. A lot of the problems cited on this talk page have been cleared up by the recent expansion. Yoninah (talk) 10:46, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

The article says :"It is traditionally said[by whom?] to have been composed by David as a confession to God after he sinned with Bathsheba." The superscript query [by whom?] is eaily answered by consulting a bible. After the title of the psalm there is a note: "A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba." . So the answer to the query is "By whoever compiled the book of psalms 2000+ years ago"!90.244.9.105 (talk) 14:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)Ian H, Wales90.244.9.105 (talk) 14:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Revised Standard version copyright?
On what basis are we using the Revised Standard version text?--agr 04:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Replace KJV with Coverdale Psalter
I move that the KJV of the psalm be replaced with that from the psalter of the Book of Common prayer, which, for 400 was by far the most common "traditional" version of the psalm, since the KJV of the psalter was not included in the revisions of the BCP, but rather, the previous Coverdale psalter was used. Most importantly, the Coverdale/BCP version is the one which is universally used in English musical settings.

Did the original Latin Vulgate use the appropiate accent marks?

Miserere (Allegri)
Can somebody put one of those links at the top of this page saying "If you meant Miserere, a piece of religious music by Gregorio Allegri, click "here". This would redirect the user to: Miserere_%28Allegri%29 Cheers 86.17.156.127 16:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Second that...it was there did someone remove it? Tomayres (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah well did it myself. Tomayres (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Text
I think there is no reason to print the text here. Particularly problematic is an English translation labelled "Septuagint"; the Septuagint is of course Greek. In general we don't just print chapters of the Bible in wikipedia articles devoted to those texts, and I'd hate to see this become the norm. If there is no compelling reason for this psalm, in particular, to have the text, then it should be removed, and inaccurate labels should be fixed. Tb (talk) 20:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. (But I can see why the recent "Septuagint" might have happened; there were already three translations (long-standing), so the recent editor simply added another.) Also, the various templates already point to various versions. Is there a "Psalms" project where "trans-Psalm" (ugh!) policy like this can be discussed? If not, then the place for discussion should probably be Talk:Psalms.
 * Propose: Delete all four translations about a week from now unless agreed otherwise.
 * Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I don't blame the recent editor! It's so inviting, that's why I am motivated to punt them all, or chaos will ensue. ;)  Many of the psalms have this going on, so I agree with your proposal, which should probably be mentioned on each and discussion on Talk:Psalms. Ugh. Tb (talk) 21:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Drop text
It is proposed on Talk:Psalms to drop the text of psalms from the individual psalm articles. If you wish to weigh in, please do so there. Tb (talk) 21:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

What is Psalm 51 about?
I'm not religious so when I came across a reference to Psalm 51 I looked it up in Wikipedia. I got nothing from this article. It needs to be deleted and restarted from scratch.

--Kjb (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Greek
Is the Greek version of the psalm correct. It seems to be talking about David and Nathan, neither mentioned in the Latin or English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.19.127.98 (talk) 09:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's correct. The first two lines are an introduction in the Hebrew original. See http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16272/jewish/Chapter-51.htm The text you are familiar with begins on line 3, which Google Translate renders "Have mercy on me, O God, in your great mercy and the multitude of your tender mercies blot out his transgressions me;"--agr (talk) 10:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Infobox image caption
the problem here is that the Hebrew original has 21 verses and the KJV 19 verses. When this discrepancy happens in a Psalm, we identify the verse we're talking about according to its placement in either version. In this case, the inscription is Latin, but we can't say it's "verse 7" because that would be incorrect to a Hebrew reader. How do you suggest resolving this? Yoninah (talk) 15:58, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * How about giving the line in English? Otherwise who'd care? It's hard to read anyway. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:00, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The numeration of the verses of the Hebrew original is not relevant to the caption because the inscription is in Latin. This particular version of the Latin shown in the image appears to be taken from the Neo-Vulgate, and there (as also in the original Vulgate) this verse is actually verse 9, as there are an extra two verses which form an introduction to the psalm. However I suggest that the simplest approach would be to omit the verse number from the caption.Ehrenkater (talk) 18:11, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * So you would say "A line from Psalm 51 on a holy water font"? Usually we're more specific. I like Gerda's idea. Yoninah (talk) 18:14, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Have added Latin text in full to the article, to avoid any possible confusion (and also to provide the line in English). Incidentally, ideally the Hebrew text should be on the right, i.e. in the first column from the Hebrew point of view.Ehrenkater (talk) 18:36, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * what do you think about this 3-language translation scheme for all the psalm pages? Yoninah (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I see a few problems.
 * Three columns are fine for a broad screen but how do they look on a mobil?
 * The English translation of the Hebrew is not necessarily the same as of the Latin.
 * What do we do when the verse numbering is different?
 * If three columns, I'd vote for Hebrew left, as the original, then English, as it's the English Wikipedia, then Latin. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Re #2: isn't the Latin (Vulgate) the same numbering as the Hebrew? Yoninah (talk) 21:34, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Benefit of clergy
I think the entire narrative of this section is WP:UNDUE and should be condensed to a couple sentences with a link to benefit of clergy from which the text was copied. Elizium23 (talk) 06:55, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Great idea, will you do it? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 21 February 2020 (UTC)