Henry asked for some input on the seam between books 4 and 5 here (but I did respond a bit too quickly - writing is dangerous. I shortchanged the complexity of the doxologies. Here is my penance.)
I had fun rereading these psalms - which of course I encourage all to do .
Apart from seeing the odd relationship between Job and Psalms, I have been idling as you can tell. I have some ideas but am percolating them offline between snatches of Job which itself will be slow going.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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3 comments:
Bob,
Thank you for your comments on inaspaciousplace.blogspot.com.
I have responded in the comment section to your comment on my "Introduction."
I wonder if you have a translation of Psalm 46:10. We use it a lot in our Introduction to Centering Prayer workshops. I am NO HEBREW SCHOLAR! But I suggest that most English translations of this verse seem to imply that if you get still you will know something ABOUT God. But in the Hebrew, I suggest that the implication could be that, if you "sink down" (rapha) you will actually KNOW God - ie. enter into intimate communion with the divine.
I wonder if you think the "sink down" reading of "rapha" is appropriate and if "yada" carries the implication of intimate communion I am suggesting?
blessings,
Christopher
Christopher - I think your suggestions around these words are appropriate. I tend to read in a slightly larger frame than the individual word. Particularly I look for repeated words and words that sound alike in the poetic structures. The recurrence of words forms a frame, the rhyming cola confirm the intent. Psalm 46 (see the links on the right hand side of Bob's log - every psalm is there twice, once in freer English without Hebrew and once in a diagram image with the Hebrew frames and cola sometimes outlined in great detail). What I look for in a psalm are things that are in the centre of circles - e.g. righteousness of God (forms of tsadik) is in the centre of the three cells of psalm 51. Psalm 46 was one of the first I mapped and translated - see the image here. For me the centre of the psalm is 'God is in the midst of her'. For us to use this as a centering prayer is important both individually and corporately. One question that occurs to me about such centering is 'how'. It is not a matter of my effort, but of my hearing with faith - and for us that means faith in the 'lifting up' of Christ - which I why I chose that phrase rather than the traditional exalted in the last section. For how does God triumph over the pride and murmuring of the nations and kingdoms - through the gift of his self-offering on the cross and us in him there. When then God encounters us at this place - we know the gift from him is not our doing - but our 'obedience of faith' to use Pauline terms, our our approach and entry to the Holy place to use Hebrews terminology (chapter 10).
Thank you for looking here - I am not a Hebrew 'scholar' but I have done the learning over the last 2 years - and the children at St Barnabas have loads of fun with the 5 minute Hebrew lessons they get on Sundays. (I have blogged these here so that others can see my approaches and their successes and failures.)
On the topic of Psalm 107--actually, Pss 107-110 as a group--W. Dennis Tucker, Jr. of Baylor's Truett Seminary recently presented a paper at the southwest regional SBL meeting on seeing anti-empirical tendencies in these psalms (in a way, extending Zenger's views on anti-imperialism in the Psalter). I have a brief comment about his paper in my SWCRS roundup on my blog . . . it is certainly an interesting perspective, and I hope he continues to develop and ultimately publish the piece.
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