Regarding the authorship of Psalms 74 & 79

Psalms 74 and 79 are attributed to Asaph, which is a wee bit awkward given their subject matter. Both of these psalms reflect on the devastation suffered by Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, with particular attention paid to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 B.C. However, Asaph the musician was a contemporary of King David (1 Chronicles 6:39 & 9:15), and so died long before those events.

One solution to this problem would be to assert the titles of Psalms were added long after they were composed by the scribes who compiled the Psalter, and ought not be taken as part of inspired Scripture. However, this theory assumes those scribes knew less about Biblical history than I do, an assumption which I think unlikely (i.e., wouldn't they also have noticed Asaph couldn't have written on these subjects?). Furthermore, the particular view of canonicity to which I subscribe holds that everything in the Bible is there because God wants it there, even if it was added by a later scribe. In other words, I don't believe we can say the Psalter is mostly inspired, but with some uninspired bits floating around.

I do believe there were some scribes who did editorial work on most, if not all, of the Old Testament, and, even if they are anonymous, they are its authors along with all the prophets whose names we use as book titles. Because of Psalm 78, I think they might have done some revising of Psalms 74 and 79.

Psalm 78 is a sketch of Israel's history from the Exodus to the reign of David. It builds toward the Philistine capture of the Ark of the Covenant as a sign of God's wrath toward and rejection of Israel, and as such paints the events recorded in 1 Samuel 4 in extreme, apocalyptic terms: sword, fire, widowhood. There is nothing in Psalm 78 which would put it later than Asaph's lifetime, and thus we have no reason to reject his authorship of it. I suggest Psalms 74 and 79 were also written by Asaph as theological and spiritual reflections on the Ark's capture, but later generations of scribes found them such appropriate expressions of the destruction of the Babylonian Exile that they rewrote those Psalms to more directly address that experience. In other words, Asaph wrote original versions of Psalms 74 and 79 which were later edited and revised by others.

This theory may be supported by the parallels between Psalm 79:6-7 and Jeremiah 10:25, which are very nearly identical. An editor who rewrote Psalm 79:1-4 to fit 587 B.C. may have thought Jeremiah's plea that the Lord judge the nations rather than Judah would fit very well after Psalm 79:5's question, "How long, O Lord?"

Of course, there's no way to prove a theory of this sort, and even if I'm right, there's also no way to know what portions of Psalms 74 and 79 were original to Asaph and what came from his editors. As with all of Scripture, however, we can rest assured that the Psalms we have are the ones the Lord inspired for the upbuilding of his Church.