OK, Orion, you bring up two different things here to address. First you sort of went back to the beginning, (not a bad idea when a thread gets bogged down).
I will say it again, IF God wrote all of the words, including the Pslams of David, then there WERE no "praises of David", but just him being a tool for God to express his OWN greatness. David's words were not his, then. They can't be both. Either David has his own thoughts, and places them in written form, or he is just transcribing God's words for him and how he should feel about his fleeing from Saul, or his wondering where God is. David becomes meaningless.
Ok, we addressed this before, and I don't think anyone here thinks that God wrote all the words. The idea of God personally writing the words of anything (with the exception of the first stone tablets, the one's that were broken when Moses came down from Mount Sinai) isn't a part of any Chrisitan doctrine. You still seem to be struggling with what "inspired" means and we really need to nail this down for you to understand how the Bible can be the inspired and infalliable Word of God.
Again, inspired doesn't mean dictation. Now, I do think there are sections of Scriptures that God did indeed dictate, but not all by any means. Not even most. As I mentioned before, God actually wrote (engraved) the Ten Commandments upon the first stone tablets, but they were broken when Moses came down. God didn't engrave the second set, but Moses did take dictation at that time, and God dictated a number of other things at the same time. Most of what we could consider 'dictation' from God can be found in the Pentateuch, but not all of the Pentateuch is dictated by God by any means. Nor was all of the Pentateuch written by Moses, especially the part that was written after Moses died. No, Moses wasn't the original "ghost writer". (Ok, bad joke! :P )
However the concept of a ghost writer is alive and well in the writings of the Pentateuch. Ghost writing being the practise of somebody who isn't a writer, writing a book nonetheless using a professional writer to actually get the words onto paper. With few notable exceptions, most 'autobiographies' of people like the Clintons for instance, were written by ghost writers. Much of what is attributed to Moses in the Pentateuch is the same way. Moses dictated, directed and ensured what he wanted written down, some grunt with a stylus did the actual writing.
Maybe this will be helpful:
Here is an example of something that God wrote with His own hands:
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me." Exodus 20:2-3 Exodus 24:12
However, we don't have that any more. God wrote these words on one of the two stone tablets that were broken.
Another example of God writing with His own hand is found in Daniel 5:25 when God writes upon the wall of Belshazzar's feasting room.
Exodus 25 would be an example of something that Moses himself wrote. Also, Moses wrote a copy of the 10 Commandments on stone which were stored in the Ark of the Covenant.
While Deuteronomy 34 was obviously written by someone other than Moses, probably most of the Pentateuch was written down by scribes. Moses probably dictated quite a bit of it, but certainly not all. However, the entire Pentateuch is attributed to Moses, for God gave the Law to Moses as the leader of the people. So, while he may not have done the grunt work of putting pen to paper, Jesus attributed the Pentateuch to Moses as the one who recieved the inspriation and faithfully saw to it that it was written down.
However, the important part of this, the part where inspiration comes in, is that God saw to it that His message to His people was faithfully recorded. Which was why Jesus had no problem quoting Moses or Isaiah. While He spent a lot of time correcting the attitudes and traditions that were binding the Jews of His day, He didn't spend any time correcting the Scriptures.
As for the works of David and the other authors, unless they were transcribing God's direct message, the words were their own, but nonetheless inspired. The pain we see in David's writings, the lonliness, the joy and praise were all valid emotions and feelings that David went through. The inspiration comes into play in that God again prompted these truths to be written down and preserved for us so that the ages could read, understand and learn from David's triumphs and his mistakes. There were also times when the Holy Spirit used David's outpourings to contain prophesies as well. Again, this doesn't mean that somehow David became a mindless auto-bot.
An example of what I am talking about can be found in Psalm 22.
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Far from my dliverance are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but Thou dost not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest.
Yet Thou art holy,
O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
In Thee our fathers trusted;
They trusted and Thou dist deliver them.
To Thee they cried out, and were delivered;
In Thee they trusted and were not dissappointed.
But I am a worm, and not a man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people.
All who see me sneer at me;
They separate with the lip, they wag the head saying,
Commit yourself to the Lord;
let Him deliever him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.
(This is too long to quote verbatim so I'm going to jump to verse 14)
I am poured out like water
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a postsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded me;
A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.
Now, it's clear that David wrote this psalm when he was distressed by the many enemies that he had. The distress and depression that David underwent, especially when Saul was out to kill him, is a common theme in many of his psalms. But, it's also clear that the Holy Spirit was inspiring David to pour out his very real distress in such a way that it became a prophetic parallel to Christ's suffering on the cross. This doesn't in any way diminish or make what David said worthless. Jews sang this song for countless years prior to Christ, and found comfort in the hope that shone through David's distress. But, that it was also an inspired prophecy is readily apparent. And, this is a classic example of how inspiration works.
Does this clear it up? Or can I add anything else that would make it more understandable? (I don't want to add to much more because this post is long enough!)
Your second point regarding the similarities can also be addressed, but I think it's really important to deal with what inspiration means before going onward. I have some very interesting material on the Dead Sea Scrolls which to me consititutes proof that the God who inspired the Scriptures was also able to keep the message of the Scriptures intact. However, I get too confused if I have to deal with too many issues at a time. Let's work out the inspiration issue, then move on to the inerrancy issue. And they are two different issues. One can believe that God inspired the original work, but man muffed it up either purposely or by accident in the ensuing millienias. There is plenty of information to show otherwise that I'll be happy to get into later.
When one can finally understand that the God who inspired the writing of His word in the first place and can also keep His word intact throughout ennumerable copies and translations, then it becomes a piece of cake to understand that this same God can also work in the hearts and minds of those who pulled together the final canon, to ensure that what is sitting here by my elbow contains the inspired and inerrant message from God.
