02_Booij_351_351_374 30/10/15 13:01 Pagina 354 354 THIJS BOOIJ 354 suited a cultic religion, and psalms were preserved in the temple archive 14. When in the Persian period Mosaic Law became the binding rule of Jewish life, poems expressing love of the Torah were admitted among the psalms; one of them was even inserted as the preface to the Psalter 15. A song like Psalm 19 may have been offered as a votive offering in the sanctuary (see v. 15); the same could apply to e.g. Psalm 104 (see v. 34). In fact there is, in my view, no sharp dividing line between cultic and non-cultic texts. In a strict sense, psalms may be called cultic if they had a function in rituals carried out in the temple or, with the sanction of the cultic officials, in other locations. The available data, however, will often be insufficient to decide whether, indeed, a given psalm had such a function originally. Gunkel’s view of the relation between the psalms and the cult is seriously flawed. No less problematic is his pursuit of an all- embracing classification of the psalms. The strictness of the classification presented in the Einleitung fails to do justice to the variety of the texts. Exemplary is the category of Mischgedichte, supposedly non-cultic poems made up of thoughts and forms from different psalm types 16. I think that actually, on account of their structure and modes of expression, and in spite of many traditional forms, most of the texts involved may rank as new creations. The problems of an exhaustive classification are also apparent in Gunkel’s kleinere Gattungen. As representing the supposed genre of the pilgrimage song only Psalm 122 is mentioned, Psalm 84 being related to it. Other proposed genres, such as the beatitude, the legend and the torah, are represented by parts of psalms or fragments. In the present article attention will be given to the collective song of thanksgiving, a type said to include Psalms 66,8-12; 67; 124; 129 17. F. Crüsemann holds the view that these texts have too little in common formally to constitute a literary genre — in which I think he is right. 14 In this context the affinity between the liturgical Psalm 118 and tradi- tional songs of prayer and thanksgiving is significant. See below, sections IV and VI. 15 W.O.E. OESTERLEY, The Psalms (London 1939) 119. 16 GUNKEL, Einleitung, 397-404, mentioning Psalms 9‒10; 19; 33; 90; 94; 119; 129; 139. 17 GUNKEL, Einleitung, 315. Isa 12,3-6 and Ps 13,1-3 are mentioned as collective thanksgiving songs outside the book of Psalms; Isa 25,9, 2 Macc 15,34 and Jdt 13,14.17 as fragments belonging to the class.