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Source: (consider it) Thread: Kerygmania: The Psalm Thread
TubaMirum
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Nigel posted on another thread that:
quote:

You mentioned earlier that you like reading the Psalms. There’s a good model there, I think, for holding interpretations in tension. The following five Psalms are quite different in feel and tone: One, 73, 38, 42/43 (treated as one Psalm), 116. If they were read in that order, though, we go round a peculiarly human cycle debating the relationship between belief and experience:-

1] “The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” – the standard view that the righteous person may live with hope under God’s covenant. There speaks a person who is stable, untroubled by stress.
73] “My foot almost slipped...” – a slight questioning of the principle outlined in Ps. 1. The author is aware of the existence of sin as a force in society, but he re-states the principle that rebellion against God inevitably leads to failure.
38] “My guilt has overwhelmed me...” – What, however, happens when experience becomes too much? This writer’s experience is anguish; there is a recognition that mere stating of belief is not enough – the author needs to feel the presence of God to bolster his belief.
42/43] “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” Now we are in angst territory. What happens to the author of the last Psalm when he feels alienated from God? He has to push his fear away by hoping that the standard view of Ps. 1 is valid, despite appearances. Will God answer?
116] “Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” – This author has apparently been through a traumatic experience, similar to that expressed in Ps. 42/43. He is able to re-state the standard view of Ps. 1, but this time from the angle of description, belief recounted from saving experience.

On the face of it, Pss 1 and 42/43 are at odds. The latter doesn’t seem to agree with the former. Is it contradictory, though, or in tension? I guess it’s the play in interpretation that reflects the gamut of emotions, experiences and beliefs that make up human beings; trying to hold the various opinions in the bible together and pulling out the right text for the right occasion, saving the others for a rainy day. Somehow I feel this approach more accurately reflects my experience of worship (so it may be entirely at odds with everyone else’s!): sometimes I feel like having quiet meditation, other times it’s a rave up. One style week in, week out, doesn’t capture the entirety of human needs, it seems. Perhaps this reflects your experience and belief, too, I don’t know.

This is as good an opening as I can think of for a Psalm thread.

Psalms seem to take in and discourse on the entirety of the human search for and relationship with God. Anybody who prays the Daily Office is intimately familiar with Psalms, and reads them on a daily basis.

What I find interesting, though, is that quite often when I read them I notice something I hadn't before! It's an amazing phenomenon, since there are only 150 and praying the Office involves the use of 2 or 3 every day. I think this is an indication of what Psalms are really about at base: they are an interior record of human relationship with God, and you "get what you need," so to speak, out of them. You hear especially what's relevant to your own daily struggles, and you hear these things in different ways at different times in your life. Psalms are always new.

This discussion came up because I wondered how we could justify the amount of work necessary to "decode" the Bible; it's obvious that we need the help of scholars to understand much of what's written in the Bible since we don't understand the original contexts at all in many cases. Not so with Psalms; they speak to us directly about the spiritual life. Not much is known, in fact, about their origins, in many cases - but this isn't important, it seems.

Psalms were and are songs of the soul. So this is a thread to talk about them in general, or to continue talking about what Nigel posted above. Or anything.

[ 19. November 2013, 01:56: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

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CuppaT
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Well, I've been waiting for someone else to speak up, but I guess I will. You have found about the most major part of my life. I love the Psalms; they compose a great deal of my rule of prayer. I pretty much follow the rule of St. Benedict with a couple minor adjustments, under the authority of my spiritual father, and have been praying the Psalter for the last nine years, as best I can remember. The words really do work into your soul and become part of your heart. What is nice about St. B is that he has morning Psalms in the morning and evening Psalms in the evening, and Sunday Psalms on a Sunday and Friday Psalms on a Friday, so that it is all laid out. I don't know how your Daily Office is; I suspect it is similar. My priest father has been praying this way for many more years than I and some of my favorite moments with him are when we talk in numbers -- just referencing the number of the psalm to whatever we are talking about.

Each of the Psalms speak of Christ, either in the Head or in the Body, as St. Augustine says over and over in his homilies. When you seek out our Lord in prayer while reading them, and when you understand that they are the Christian's first prayer book, then you begin to look at them in a whole new light. The Psalms are not all about me, me, me. Even if David and the others wrote them concerning things they were experiencing, they are more fully concerning Christ and his Church. We do call him the Prophet David for good reason. Someone has said that Jesus quoted from the Psalms more than from any other book.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
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TubaMirum
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There are many ways to pray the Psalms. The Book of Common Prayer has a two-year alternating Daily Office schedule, in which are given 1-2 Psalms each for Morning and Evening Prayer. I think it takes two months to get through the whole Psalter. This seems to give the whole thing.

Alternatively, a person can use the system right in the BCP itself; the Psalms are chunked up so you can read them in order, straight through. They are labeled "First Day: Morning Prayer" or " Twenty-first Day: Evening Prayer
." It's about two pages per Office, usually, and you go through the whole Psalter in one month. This is the system I use.

Alternatively, a person could do what you do: use the Benedictine system, which is meant to go through the entire Psalter in a week. (I think at Little Gidding, the idea was to "pray without ceasing," and get through the Psalter every day!)

I completely agree with you about Psalms being the heart of prayer. I'd like to comment more on what you've written, but need to think about a few things first. Thanks very much for commenting, though - always great to find another Psalm-ophile!

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CuppaT
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I have heard of some Orthodox monks who pray the Psalms every day. I'm sure it takes a good portion of each day, and so really does help with praying without ceasing. I have heard of others who have memorized the Bible. It boggles the imagination. I would love to have the time to be so immersed in the Word.
CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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Nigel M
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I’d like to post later on the relationship between the Psalms and theology, but this is good time to dwell on the devotional aspect. I do not really come from a liturgical background, so my approach to the Psalms has been more on the “hit-and miss” model, but my fishing expeditions in the collection have caused me to appreciate the songs attributed to the Sons of Korah above all the others. These occur in two blocks (in Hebrew and most English translations): Pss 42–49 (I include 43 as part of 42) and Pss 84–88 (with the exception of Ps 86).

I am not surprised that these collections have been mined more than any others have by Christian musicians and songwriters. They contain the most evocative uses of figurative and rhetorical language in the Psalter. The emotions, levels of confidence and experiences expressed run across a wide range.

Thinking about this, a series of questions occurred to me: What does it tell us about the Psalms that they have had such an impact on the devotional life of Christians (others, too – but I’m focussing on Christians at this point)? Is it because they are poetic in character and therefore tend to make greater use of figurative language? If it is the language type that touches a base in our make-up as humans, then what role do the following have for Christians?: -
* History;
* Systematic theology;
* Historical criticism;
* Propositional theology;
* Narrative discourse in the bible; and
* The “Rule of Faith” in early Christendom (including the creeds).

Are these simply ‘lesser modes’ of communication that appeal to a more limited aspect of humanity? Is it the role and fate of theology that is can work best when it is poetic and figurative, rather than propositional (and therefore less on target, so to speak)? TubaMirum wrote about the fact that the Psalms need no detailed interpretation; they speak as they are - once translated, of course, for non-Hebrew readers. If we take the role of translators as a given, what benefit (if any) would more detailed analysis provide to the person who reads for spiritual comfort and growth? Would historical and linguistic analysis destroy the aura of mystery and the role of our imagination as readers?

I suspect that the answer is most likely going to be that the imaginative use of language better feeds our whole being, but that it also has a role in driving us in search of more information about God. Thus it leads us to thinking about God in more ‘theological’ ways (understood in the more restricted sense that focuses on the bullet points above).

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CuppaT
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I waited all day for others to chime in, but I will answer for lack of a better. I am sorry, Nigel; I know you are speaking English, but I don't have a clue as to what you are saying. I must be very simple minded and unstudied. I really have not gone to seminary or anything like that. I simply love God's word, and especially the Psalms and the Gospels. Of the bullet points you wrote, I understood the words "history" and "creeds".

I can see why you link 41 and 42 together (42 & 43) because they repeat a verse and a theme, but they really are two separate Psalms. Those two happen to be next to each other. We could have some fun with a treasure hunt with the other "finds" that are like that. Any takers? There are quite a few pairings in the Psalms and it was fun for me to discover them.

It is good to read the Psalms a little at a time, and to make it a small part of every day is even better. That is what I did for years. One way for me to memorize a favorite Psalm fairly easily is simply to read it every day as part of my normal prayers. Quite soon I find that I know it by heart. I can pray that one while I wash the dishes even, and add another one to my daily prayer routine.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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bush baptist
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I love the Psalms -- my husband and I read one a day as part of our morning prayers together, taking them in order (unless something really calls to us).
I love the gradually deepening understanding you get, as you come back again and again to the same psalm. (Like you, Cuppa T., we talk in numbers, sometimes, which always reminds me of the old joke about prisoners and their jokes, but never mind that now!) It won't surprise anyone who does this how often the psalm of the day speaks to us directly.
I also can hardly believe how I used to think, years ago, that the psalms were all much of a muchness. The more I read them, and pray through them, the more they spiral off into the most amazing diversity and riches.

But I'm a bit intimidated by this being Kerygmania, so I'll just spiral off myself somewhere...

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Nigel M
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quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
I am sorry, Nigel; I know you are speaking English, but I don't have a clue as to what you are saying.

A very timely and salutary reminder that no matter how much I try to avoid jargon, there's a tendency to let the foot slip from time to time! Thanks CuppaT - very useful reality check. I should appoint you the guardian of reality for my Kerygmania posts: if you see me deviate off into the land of jargonmania, feel free to drop another "Ahem!"

So what on earth was I saying in that post? I think it's this:

Plenty of Christians read the Psalms for devotional reasons. They benefit from it.

On the other hand, numerous scholars have been filling numerous libraries with research into the Psalms. They look at the history of how the Psalms might have developed over time before they were fixed in the canon; and they look to see if statements in the Psalms can be grouped together to say things about who God is and what he does.

Are these two activities – devotional and scholarly – mutually incompatible? There are those who say that they are. You cannot, they say, do research properly if you are reading the Psalms prayerfully. Equally, you cannot enjoy praying the Psalms and at the same time ask scientific-type questions. There’s been this tension, especially in western Europe and northern America over the past 200 years or so, between feeding the head (knowledge) and feeding the heart (devotion). I’d like to think that a human could do both. It is possible to read the Psalms prayerfully and let questions rise in the mind as one goes – perhaps noting them down – talking to God about them; e.g., “That’s interesting, why’s that there?” “Why did he say that?” etc. etc. This activity can spin off into research. Equally, research into a specific topic raised, for example, here in Kerygmania, could be used to enhance one’s devotion towards God.

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Pooks
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quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:

...This discussion came up because I wondered how we could justify the amount of work necessary to "decode" the Bible; it's obvious that we need the help of scholars to understand much of what's written in the Bible since we don't understand the original contexts at all in many cases. Not so with Psalms; they speak to us directly about the spiritual life. Not much is known, in fact, about their origins, in many cases - but this isn't important, it seems.

Throughout history, there have always been people who devote themselves to the study and interpretation of Scripture and who pass their findings down to the wider faith communities. Perhaps we forget just how much we owe them in terms of a clearer understanding of the scriptures, even the Psalms. I remember when I first became a Christian, most of the Bible was jarring and strange to me and mostly irrelevant. As far as I was concerned, the only bit I had to follow from the OT was the ten commandments. NT was a bit better because 'I am a Christian now, so I guess I had better do my four Christian rules' (read bible every day; go to church; pray daily; witness). The Psalms were all right because they're nice, but they were just as foreign to me as anything else. If I had stayed at a purely devotional level of my understanding, I would be tragedy truly personified because I would never have grown.

Psalms can be taken at many levels but in a sense it is no different from other parts of the scriptures, in that there are parts that we understand, there are parts that we think we understand, and there are parts that make no sense at all. It is more pleasing because it has rhythms and rhymes and it appeals to our sense of beauty, but that doesn't immune us from misunderstanding or having no understanding. If we only take those bits that we like and understand (or think we understand) there will be lots of gaps in our understanding of the greater scheme of things in both width and depth. The result of this could be that we stay at the drinking milk level all our lives.

Just to give an example of what I mean and a possible misunderstanding: 'As the deer pants for water...so my soul thirsts for you' (Ps 42:1). It's possible for me to imagine Bambi with his big cute dewy eyes skipping lightly around looking for a stream to have a drink. Because I have never seen deer in their natural habitat, I get my reference from a Disney film. I may not be wrong, in that ‘Bambi’ is thirsty and that's what the verse said, but I would never have appreciated the depths of desperation and ugliness that comes from drought and famine and the struggle for life that this panting is about, which the later verses imply re: despair (which were the verses that I couldn’t relate to because I am not David and they are not nice. Something about shattering bones. Yuk!) So I would have missed out on the depths of the longing for God that this verse is talking about if I were not taught and learned or had tried to dig deeper into what this verse is about.

I think a degree of studying and searching is needed even in devotions, it may be not at the scholarly level, because clearly not everyone has the ability or the facility to do so. But that’s why we have ministers/ teachers to help us learn (if they are doing their job properly. Sadly, many are not). Indeed, I don’t see why the act of studying and learning itself can not be seen as an devotional act.

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CuppaT
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Who could argue with loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? I like your use of the term levels, Pooka. Would that I understood things on ever deeper levels myself. I think the danger of too much scholarship can be, but is not always the case, that one loses sight of who God is and why one is studying in the first place -- hopefully, that is, to know Him more fully and to love Him more. Are those really the sort of people that you see coming out of the seminaries around you? I have found that the ones (to me) who most seem to love and know God are the ones who are completely immersed in the Church and its life, and who read on their own, and who have an extensive, deliberate, and consistant prayer live.

Thank you, Nigel, I understood you far better this time around. I don't think scholarship and devotion are incompatable at all. When they meet it is quite thrilling. Take "paths of the sea" for instance. Do you think David (I think it was him) was really much of a sea faring man or was he using poetry? But as people ventured out into waters farther away from sight of land, they discovered there really are rivers or paths within the oceans. Amazing. But if your scholars are coming at their task with anything but a prayerful attitude, as in the beginning of your last paragraph, then I do wonder if they are Christians and why they are doing the studies at all.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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TubaMirum
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quote:
Originally posted by pooka:
I think a degree of studying and searching is needed even in devotions, it may be not at the scholarly level, because clearly not everyone has the ability or the facility to do so. But that’s why we have ministers/ teachers to help us learn (if they are doing their job properly. Sadly, many are not). Indeed, I don’t see why the act of studying and learning itself can not be seen as an devotional act.

I agree with much of what you say here, pooka. My question, though, is this: why would God make it so difficult for us to understand anything about Him? Why would God be an obscurantist about His own nature? (I'm using "Him" here for brevity.)

That, to me, is a big problem, of almost Gnostic proportions. We shouldn't have to study, or depend upon someone else to study, in order to have the first idea about what God is about. This is different, I think, from other questions about the nature of God, i.e., Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers?, or If God Is All-Powerful, Why Doesn't He Stop Disasters?

This is a basic question about the ability of the human being to get in touch with God through what people say are His Holy Scriptures. This is why I take a different view of the Bible, I think, than many people do; I think the experience of God must be, well, experiential. And Psalms are songs of ecstasy and despair (as you say) and longing and sorrow. Anybody can understand that, without having to read the opinions of others.

I do get your point - and don't get me wrong, I find the study of the Bible to be completely fascinating. I'm a mystic when it comes to relationship with God, though.

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Nigel M
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There is another thread on this board that asks questions about how we deal with those hard sayings in the Psalms – the ones that stick in the craw from a Christian who seeks to reconcile them with NT teachings.

Any takers here on how they might be dealt with from a devotional angle? Examples of tricky texts are:-
quote:
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-
he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. [Ps. 137:8-9]

Wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me ... May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation. [Ps. 107:2, 9-13]

Less bombastic, but of equal nuisance in devotions is the odd verse in an otherwise wonderful Christian Psalm!:
Ps. 23:5 – “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Ideas?

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CuppaT
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Mystics are good, because God is a mystery. He is so much above us that and our understanding is limited. We strive in love to grow toward him, and he reaches out to us, not only in the incarnation, but also through the holy Scriptures.

I saw that thread. I often wondered why they kept to only 136/137 and not some of the others like 108/109. That one seems worse to me. (You must forgive me please for the numbers; I really do know the Psalms with the LXX numbering and I get mixed up with the other, but I try to put both correctly.) But I think you have to have firmly in mind who your enemies are. Is it St. John Cassian who talks about this? We do fight against principalities and powers that are darn annoying and we should feel like dashing them to pieces against the stones! May our sins never torment us again! I know for me when I get to 135/136 and am rejoicing over the slaying of mighty kings: Sihon King of the Amorites, and Og King of Bashan, I know right and well what my particular Sihon and Og are that I am thankful have been slain, and I hope they never raise their ugly heads up from the dead -- for his mercy endureth forever. Do you see what I mean? Yes, it is poetry. But, yes, it is very personal, mystic, relational, many leveled, and all that.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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Adam.

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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:

Ps. 23:5 – “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Ideas?

The enemies referred to needn't be people. They could, for instance, be our own sins, weaknesses, conceits and blindness. Or, they could be physical afflictions. In the presence of all these, still, God prepares a table for us.

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CuppaT
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Just thinking. I don't think Cassian really talked about Sihon and Og, but he drew the same analogy using the Amorites and the Amalakites, IIRC. Augustine does something similar in his homily on Ps 82/83.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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Nigel M
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I may have backed myself into a corner here. I accept that it is possible to assign these “un-Christian” texts to spiritual language, the issue being that if we are supposed to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, etc., then it doesn’t seem right to pray disaster on humans who oppose us.

Having supported the idea of taking these texts in the manner the writer intended them to be taken – and I don’t think the Psalmists wrote with spiritual forces in mind when they penned the likes of Psalm 137 – then my problem is to find a way of reading the Psalms devotionally, as a Christian, while taking them at their face value.

Anyone fancy a challenge? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a Christian and literal reading of the Psalms.

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Pooks
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quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
Are those really the sort of people that you see coming out of the seminaries around you?

CuppaT, perhaps this is where personal experience comes in and we have seen different outcomes. Certainly many of the people I know who have finished their theological studies have gone on to serve in churches and communities in different capacities. Hopefully using what they have learned to serve and teach others. Some of them may even be the prayerful ones. [Biased]

quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I agree with much of what you say here, pooka. My question, though, is this: why would God make it so difficult for us to understand anything about Him? Why would God be an obscurantist about His own nature? (I'm using "Him" here for brevity.)

That, to me, is a big problem, of almost Gnostic proportions. We shouldn't have to study, or depend upon someone else to study, in order to have the first idea about what God is about. This is different, I think, from other questions about the nature of God, i.e., Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers?, or If God Is All-Powerful, Why Doesn't He Stop Disasters?

This is a basic question about the ability of the human being to get in touch with God through what people say are His Holy Scriptures. This is why I take a different view of the Bible, I think, than many people do; I think the experience of God must be, well, experiential. And Psalms are songs of ecstasy and despair (as you say) and longing and sorrow. Anybody can understand that, without having to read the opinions of others.

It is a very good question and my own understanding is that God didn't make it hard but the 'fall' mentioned in Gen. 3 may have something to do with our inability to stay in touch with God. I agree with you that experience is important. But how and what we define as 'experiencing God' is another topic all together. That coupled with the role of ‘faith’ in our Christian walk - I am afraid I have to wait for other scholars to come along to sort it out in another thread.

Where we differ may be that, given we are in the post Gen. 3 world, I think that God gave us a renewed mind (whatever that means) as well as the Holy Spirit to reveal and guide our understanding of God. I think we are meant to use our renewed mind to understand both who God is and his will for us, both individually and beyond.

Or perhaps I see devotionals (Psalms or otherwise) slightly different from you as well. I see devotionals as more than just my experience with God for my own benefit/relationship with God. That is only the beginning. I see it as part of the discipleship which means not only for my own personal growth but also as part of the preparation for the Great Commission - which may involve teaching others about God at some point. Hence as much full and clear understanding as possible. My fear of using experience alone to know God is that I don't trust myself to get it right all the time. It can become very subjective and I can easily fall into wishful thinking or even heresy and not realise it. Of course, what is and who defines heresy is a topic for another thread yet again.

Please understand I am not saying that everyone should be a scholar, but that we should try to use everything that God has given to us to learn, to love and to serve.

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quote:
Originally posted by pooka:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by CuppaT:
[qb]Are those really the sort of people that you see coming out of the seminaries around you?

quote:
CuppaT, perhaps this is where personal experience comes in and we have seen different outcomes. Certainly many of the people I know who have finished their theological studies have gone on to serve in churches and communities in different capacities. Hopefully using what they have learned to serve and teach others. Some of them may even be the prayerful ones. [Biased]
You are right, of course. I have very limited knowledge and should not have spoken like that. My experience is really only with Orthodox here in the US, and I cannot say that I am that impressed with the Orthodox seminaries here. Our priests usually turn out to be great, but only after some years of real Church life. The caliper of person who goes into seminary is hopefully the same as that which emerges at the end. When our young priest came to us straight out of seminary, he sounded like he just came from a psychology class. Perhaps some growth occurs, but I doubt it is from some of the classes that I have heard about. They do not seem to teach the Bible so much these days. I wonder why not?

CuppaT
(normally the most optimistic of persons and hardly ever pessimistic)

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Please don't let this thread get killed, y'all. I really didn't mean to get side-tracked. Could we discuss the Psalms one by one, TubaMirum, like in the Gospel thread? We could stay on each Psalm as long as anyone had anything productive to say and then move on to the next.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
Please don't let this thread get killed, y'all. I really didn't mean to get side-tracked. Could we discuss the Psalms one by one, TubaMirum, like in the Gospel thread? We could stay on each Psalm as long as anyone had anything productive to say and then move on to the next.

CuppaT

CuppaT, one thing I've noticed about this board is that often people seem to like to mull things over - or maybe look things up? [Biased] that's what I'm doing! - before posting. Sometimes a thread will go for a week without a comment while people are turning something over in their minds.

So don't worry; it won't die! Nigel has proposed an interesting thought experiment; you and bush baptist have talked about your love of praying the Psalms; Pooka and I are mulling something over together. Things are happening!

It just tends to go slow here, and is more spread out over time. If you would like to discuss any particular Psalm, you should feel free anytime to post on it. Somebody will pick up the thread, I'm sure. Or if you want to go through them all, that might be another good thread in itself.

[ 07. June 2007, 20:55: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]

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I’ve been thinking further (mulling?) about the difficult passages in the Psalms and a devotional reading. Essentially it all boils down to the “What would Jesus have done” method of approaching difficult questions.

There’s an assumption among many Christians that Jesus, during his earthly ministry, sought to overturn an ethic of violence. His recommendation for living as the people of God is built on the line of “love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” to be the Good Samaritan, etc., etc. Not for nothing do some Muslim scholars say that Moses brought a religion of violence and Jesus a religion of peace (compared to Islam, where they say you need a bit of both depending on the occasion). It’s with that background that we tend to view the Psalms and feel uncomfortable with advocating the dashing of infants against rocks (Ps. 137:8-9), or the quick death of one’s enemies and the destitution of their offspring (Ps. 109:8-13).

While accepting the validity of Jesus’ teaching in this regard, I think the above approach to reading the New Testament doesn’t quite go far enough. I don’t think there is such a complete break between Old and New Testaments. Jesus and his hearers inhabited the world of the ‘Old Testament,’ that was their point of interaction. Jesus’ approach was to tackle head-on wrong interpretations of that Scripture; he argued over texts with the interpreters of the day, he showed that it was important to go back to basics (e.g., Gen. 1-3) to find principles for living as God intended. It’s out of that background that we read the ‘love’ sayings. They are the principles to aim for; but we have also to accept the fact that Jesus’ ethic included confrontation when it was necessary. He was not afraid to have a war of words with his opponents, nor was he adverse to dramatic action (cleansing of the temple). Even Paul, who picked up on Jesus’ method of interpretation (assessing life in the light of Gen. 1-3, for example), could let his strong feelings pour out from time to time. It’s the way we are built.

Let me dig a bit deeper there. I think the key here is the in-built sense of injustice we have. We feel it keenly when we observe – or are the recipient of – an unjust act. Whether it be genocide or someone cutting us up in traffic, we know something unfair and wrong has happened. Something rises up inside us and we feel those so-called “un-Christian” thoughts and emotions. I actually think this deep sense of injustice is God-given. It reflects a part of God – a God who is opposed to injustice and who also ‘feels’ it keenly when his creation is spoilt. When we have feelings of injustice, we are, therefore, acting part of our role as the image of God. This is one of the key links, it seems to me, between the Old and New Testaments: God will act in the face of injustice. I rather fear that holding a lid down on the kettle of our emotions, trying to overcome them by force(!) in an attempt to become totally loving, does two things: it doesn’t do justice to the entirety of the Bible; and it also causes emotional problems for humans – we merely postpone the day of steam to a point when the pressures build up to the point of explosion.

So how do we pray the Psalms ‘literally’ in this light? Well, on one level we can use, say, Psalm 137:8-9, to confess our feelings. I know this is done by many Christians. We read verses 8-9 and pray, “Father, there have been times recently when I have felt anger along these lines and have wished harm on some of your creation. Forgive me...” Yes, this is a valid starting point. I think we can go further, though. We can use the same sense of injustice that the writer of those two verses felt and bring that to God. “Father, today I saw an act of injustice. That act wasn’t right and I know it. It must also be wrong in your eyes...” When we do this we are doing two things:-

1] We are praying for God’s justice and the quick coming of his Kingdom to restore all things. We are, in effect, praying the prayer of the Jews in Babylon for the end of exile; and

2] We want evil to be named and shamed – for the perpetrators to understand the evil they have done when they mar parts of God’s creation – before we can move on to the question of forgiveness.

I should make clear that I am not rejecting the approach that reads these texts spiritually – using them to pray against non-human things (e.g., sin, Satan, death, etc.). I’m sure that’s a valid approach. It’s just that I think there is also a way of avoiding a sense of dualism in our reading; we can read and pray the texts literally – as the author literally intended – as well.

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TubaMirum
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Nicely read, Nigel.

This is exactly the reading that many monastics take; they use the Psalms - which they pray all day, every day - as a means of dealing with the human condition as it manifests in themselves and in all of us. Psalm 137, as I see it, is not an instance of an actual act of violence; it is an expression of (and an outlet for?) anger and rage, as you suggest. It, and the others you mention, reflect the reality of our feelings and thoughts; we all have feelings like this at some point during our lives. I think somebody also mentioned that it's an excellent way to to take notice of the sort of damage that oppression, imprisonment, and slavery can (and do) wreak on the human soul. Also a good reading, I think.

I realized awhile ago that the Bible would be essentially useless as a tool (or inspiration) of any sort if it didn't contain rage, self-pity, jealousy, pride, manipulation, violence, and war. How could we see it as an accurate reflection of human history? How could it ever make sense to us, or be in any way useful, if it showed only the "positive" side of human nature?

No, we need a true and real reflection of human life, or else the Bible and our faith are simply false. Above all else, the story we follow is and must be historical and based in reality.

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It might be a good idea to see what we come up with during a reading of one Psalm in its entirety – and perhaps the beginning is as good a place as any to start.
quote:
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
[Psalm 1, NIV]

I imagined a conversation with the author – labelling below ‘author’ as ‘A’ and me, the listener, as ‘L.’

A: How lucky is the one who doesn’t follow the advice of those rebels against God!
L: Luck? I didn’t think we were supposed to have anything to do with luck.
A: Oh I don’t mean it in the way you do, with your strange English language; it’s nothing to do with gambling. I mean it in the sense that they are extremely fortunate; they are well-off.
L: Who are?
A: Anyone whose lifestyle is markedly different from practical atheists. Anyone who steers clear of doing what those who rebel against God do.
L: OK; but what does this fortunate person do, then, to be so lucky?
A: That person is so glad to immerse himself in the rules for life given in God’s teachings.
L: Hmmmm. I’m afraid that sounds a touch dry – I mean, all those laws? Why would anyone enjoy that?
A: Ah! I see another problem with your English language! I’ll tell you the ‘why’ in a moment – but first let me give you a picture so we can understand what I mean. Imagine the wilderness, with its dry, rocky terrain, sweeping up into the hills. It’s too dry for vegetation. That probably sounds like the Torah to you, yes? Now imagine a riverbed, cutting down through that wilderness; it has a good stream of clear, fresh water coming unpolluted from the hills. See a tree, just by the stream, tall and strong. It gives excellent fruit each year and it remains green all the year round. Sounds good, yes? It has a supply of life all the time, understand? That’s the right picture: that person is so well-off because he has an unending supply of life!
L: Well, OK; but I tend to get the picture that in real life it’s the bad people who are well-off.
A: On the contrary. Rebels against God don’t have the roots they need. Take a look outside of the river bed, back at the wilderness. See what happens to anything that tries to plant itself out there. What have you left? Mere husks, good for nothing. No roots, so their entire life is spent being tossed around in whatever direction the current wind of culture is blowing. No substance, you see.
L: It’s about world-view again, isn’t it, and how people find answers to life’s big questions?
A: You probably need to get out more. Nevertheless, that’s the reason why rebels will not be able to withstand God’s questions. Neither will they be able to have the last say before the people of God. You wanted to know why? It’s because God actively guards the life we lead as followers of his guide. The rebels, on the other hand, have a lifestyle that will doom them to destruction.

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TubaMirum
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And if you go here or here, you can here the beginning of the Psalm chanted Orthodox-style by the Boston Byzantine Choir.

[Biased]

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TubaMirum
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Here are two short quotes from my EFM materials about Psalm 1:

quote:
The first Psalm is a "wisdom" song, a hymn that stands both as a word of comfort to those who keep God's law and a guide to the living.

The Hebrew word translated "happy" in the NRSV ["Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked"] derives from the verb that means "go straight, go on, advance." This is not happiness in the sense of elation, but the happiness that comes with sureness of purpose. That sureness of purpose comes from taking "delight in the law of the LORD," meditating on it "day and night."

quote:
The sharp division of life into two ways resembles the interpretation found in the Deuteronomic history: loyalty to YHWH results in blessing, and unfaithfulness to YHWH - doing "that which is evil" - results in curse....Psalm 1, however, should not be taken as a theoretical statement, but as a hymn intended to encourage the worshiper to follow the life of righteousness.
(I hope short quotes like this don't violate the Copyright guidelines? I tried to find them, but was unable to.)

It's given me a new perspective to realize that Psalms were used liturgically in Temple worship (more very interesting stuff about that later!). They are and were hymns, and are and were meant to be sung.

Acrostics in the Hebrew determine the structure of many of these (look for anything with 22 verses, or multiples thereof, for the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet). This Psalm isn't one of those (I don't think!), though.

I was interested to read the phrase "wisdom song"; it does seem related to Proverbs and other such books in how it sets out its theme.

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CuppaT
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Psalm One begins with a Beatitude: Blessed is the Man… and so begins the first Kathisma of vespers of Saturday evening, the first prayers of the Liturgical week in the Orthodox Church. Every week for centuries has begun this way. We consider three postures: walking, standing, and sitting. The just man does not follow the counsel of the wicked; he does not stand where sinners go, nor does he sit with the unrighteous. The Bible is full of examples of men who followed bad advice to their doom. But what does he do? He meditates on the Law day and night, hiding the Word in his heart. Here is Wisdom indeed, just as TubaMirum indicated. This Psalm begins with many wisdom themes. We delight in the Law. That is an amazing meditation all in itself, but I leave it to your imagination. We are given an image of a Tree by the Psalmist, a tree planted by rivers of living water, bearing its fruit in its season…. Hopefully, when we read slowly, all sorts of chimes from the Gospels and other parts of Scriptures should ring in our ears. Where else do we know about living waters? Psalm 23? The woman at the well? “Bearing its fruit in its season” – like the fruits of the Spirit?, even the fig tree which Jesus cursed because it did not bear fruit in that season. But coming back to the first line, Who is the Man? Many of the fathers talk about this Psalm. I am afraid I cannot remember where I have read commentaries at the moment, but they have been several. Perhaps the rest of you might know more than I. But all do agree that the Man is referring to Jesus. He is the One on whom we meditate day and night, the One Mediator between God and Man, the One in whom we live and move and have our being. He is the One who most perfectly exemplifies walking not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standing in the way of the sinners, nor sitting in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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TubaMirum
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Thanks for the interesting stuff, CuppaT - especially, for me, your pointing out the three postures! I didn't really notice that; it's a literary device and a good one.

Also very interesting to learn that Sunday Vespers begins with Psalm 1 in the Orthodox Church; that is different from the Benedictine schedule that the Western Church uses. Catholics and Anglicans sing Psalms 110-115 at Sunday Vespers - and Psalm 114 (not sure of the Vulgate numbering) is sung to the Irregular Tone, the Tonus Peregrinus. This is the only time that Tone is ever used at the monastery I go to for prayers; it's an ancient Hebrew tune originally called B'tset Yisrael ("When Israel went forth out of Egypt" - which is the theme of Psalm 114).

I do look at Psalms in a very different way than you do, in one sense: I don't read them as talking about Jesus, but as the prayer of Jesus. I find it wonderful that we ordinary folk can sing the same songs he did 2,000 years ago!

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Nigel M
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Wahay! An Orthodox, a Catholic and a (one of many) Protestant interpretation of the same text! We're on our way to publishing our own Triapla! I bet Freddy could make it a Quadapla - and there's room for yet more in here: In my Father's House there are many significances....

Apart from variations in liturgical usage, I guess the difference here is in the starting point we are used to - i.e., the method of interpretation that we were taught. That tends to draw our eyes in particular directions and, as a consequence, reveals different emphases. Different aspects of the same elephant?

I like the affinity between this Psalm and the Beatitudes and related teachings in Matthew 5-7; it's almost possible to say that the Matthew passage is an extended commentary on Psalm 1.

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CuppaT
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Just to clarify, regarding the vespers thing, when I said that our Saturday vespers begins our Sunday worship, it is that we pray those Psalms 1-8 (or a portion) and it is called the first portion for the new week. Those Psalms you mentioned 110ff are what I pray on Sunday night for Monday’s vespers. (And the evening and the morning were the second day.) I think the catholic and the orthodox monasteries follow pretty much the same pattern, maybe different readings. I sure wish I could hear the music you talked about for 114. That is one of my favorites, reminding me of the feast of Theophany.

People have been singing and chanting the Psalms since the time of Moses, who wrote some of them, and we will be in Heaven as well, the song of Moses, in fact, isn’t it? (Maybe the one from Deut. 32) Yes, Jesus sang them! They were the cries of his heart and the words of his mouth while he lived and taught among his disciples. But this is where the multi-layered aspect comes in. These are the prayers of David with a historic context; these are the prayers of Jesus; these are the prayers of the Church! Ever since Jesus incarnation our entire perspective on the Psalms and the OT has changed. We understand now! Christ came to fulfill the prophesies, just like he was trying to explain to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is not my interpretation of things; this is what has been said for centuries by those far better than I.

I am glad you picked up on the word Beatitude that I used, Nigel. I understand your using Happy as a translation, but it seems a weakening of the meaning to me. I am all for being happy, but I would far rather be blessed of God, even if it means difficulties and persecution.

How about a question. Rahab is mentioned in Ps. 87 & 89. How is it that she has traditionally come to be interpreted as Egypt? I would think that Jericho would make more sense since that is where she was from. I have wondered why Jericho is never mentioned in the history psalms 77,104, & 105. Do you think it is because the city had gotten rebuilt by then? I do not know the sequence of events very well, but I know that it was rebuilt eventually.

CuppaT

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Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony

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quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
Just to clarify, regarding the vespers thing, when I said that our Saturday vespers begins our Sunday worship, it is that we pray those Psalms 1-8 (or a portion) and it is called the first portion for the new week. Those Psalms you mentioned 110ff are what I pray on Sunday night for Monday’s vespers. (And the evening and the morning were the second day.) I think the catholic and the orthodox monasteries follow pretty much the same pattern, maybe different readings. I sure wish I could hear the music you talked about for 114. That is one of my favorites, reminding me of the feast of Theophany.

CuppaT

Sorry! I totally misread your post in re: Saturday vs. Sunday. I think the Psalms for Saturday Vespers are different in the West, though, too; I don't remember ever hearing Psalm 1 at that service. Will post again with info on that, and I'll also try to find an online recording of 114 sung to the Tonus Peregrinus. It's great!
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quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I was interested to read the phrase "wisdom song"; it does seem related to Proverbs and other such books in how it sets out its theme.

A thought occurred to me on that wisdom theme. Psalm 1 could be said to go beyond the simple characteristics that are often associated with wisdom literature in the Bible. Yes, it is in third person language (addressed about God, rather than to God) and yes it could I suppose be reduced to a blessing/curse prose sentence, e.g., “The Torah-abiding person will be blessed by God...” (that’s the propositional theology bit), but Psalm 1 is more than just that. I see it as a missionary statement as well: as both you and CuppaT note, it was used in Judaic public worship. It was a proclamation to the world about the one true God. As such, it had a part in fulfilling the ‘light to the gentiles’ theme in Judaism, stretching back to Abraham’s role as a blessing to the nations.

quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
I am glad you picked up on the word Beatitude that I used, Nigel. I understand your using Happy as a translation, but it seems a weakening of the meaning to me. I am all for being happy, but I would far rather be blessed of God, even if it means difficulties and persecution.

I agree. I veered away from translating it that way in Ps. 1 simply because of the resonance with Ps. 137:8-9, where those who bash Babylon’s infants against rocks are described using the same word (Heb. ashre אשׁרי), “blessed / happy.” I suppose it could be said that the person who however unwittingly carries out God’s judgement is also the recipient of God’s blessing, but I guess the intent of both Psalms is different; one is definitely about the benefits - blessings - of being on the right side of God, the other is probably more heavy irony?
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum in response to CuppaT:
I do look at Psalms in a very different way than you do, in one sense: I don't read them as talking about Jesus, but as the prayer of Jesus.

Again, this sparked off a thought. I'm interested in this push/pull effect in the Bible, where Old Testament texts can be seen to be straining forward to a goal (Christians see that to be fulfilled in Christ), while at the same time the NT shows Jesus and his followers casting back to the 'OT' for their foundations and modes of expression. Quite a symbiotic relationship!

quote:
Originally posted by CuppaT:
How about a question. Rahab is mentioned in Ps. 87 & 89. How is it that she has traditionally come to be interpreted as Egypt? I would think that Jericho would make more sense since that is where she was from. I have wondered why Jericho is never mentioned in the history psalms 77,104, & 105. Do you think it is because the city had gotten rebuilt by then? I do not know the sequence of events very well, but I know that it was rebuilt eventually.

The word 'Rahab' can also be translated something like "Proud One" and is used in Isaiah 30:7 -
quote:
...Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. [NIV]
It looks as though the name 'Rahab' in that sense was convenient to use as poetically synonymous with Egypt, but was not intending to refer to the lady Rahab in Jericho.

I'm not sure why the city doesn't feature in the Psalms. Perhaps it was a level of detail that was not necessary in the grand sweep of God's involvement on Israel's behalf? There is a lot of emphasis on the exodus, but only passing references to Canaan as God's gift.

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pimple

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I don't want to put the cat among the pigeons here. But two common threads seem to be slightly at odds to an observer. One is that the Psalms encompass the whole human condition, and this is soething I am wholeheartedly in agreement with - they are almost unsurpassable as poetry.

The other thread is that the Psalms are all about Christ. This seems to be slightly in tension with the human aspect. CuppaT said "it's not all me, me, me." Which seems to imply that praying the Psalms is not to be used as psycho therapy. I guess that's a gross oversimplification of what she meant.

The Psalms were written by and for Jews. If they are all about Christ, that poses a problem for non-Christians. But maybe they just shouldn't be involved in this? It looks like a pretty effective devotional exercise - so far as an agnostic can tell.

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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)

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I sympathise with the view above but also believe in archetypes - so I can say that they are ALSO about Christ.

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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Custard
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I think I'd want to say that those two threads can be put together.

They are genuinely about the human condition (well, most of them).

Therefore they are genuinely about Christ, who is the Truly Human One, and who shares in the current human condition in everything except sin. They are, to quote a theological lecturer who did a series of talks at a church weekend away, "The Songs that Jesus Sang". And Jesus is the True King, from whom all kingship derives its value, and the Truly Righteous One, etc.

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CuppaT
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Yes, the Psalms were written by Jews, and for Jews first, even back then for all God-fearers. But Jesus is the fullfilment of the Old Testament prophesies, the archetype -- exactly! Did King David know he was a prophet? I don't know if he did. But he was. And Christ is the completer of it all. That does not mean that we "spiritualize" everything, and cannot apply things personally to ourselves; it just means that we must also focus on the big picture and not see each Psalm as applying only to ourselves and our partictular situation.

CuppaT

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pimple

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Thanks for the clarification.

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TubaMirum
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Well, it would be easy to turn that argument on its head, though, CuppaT: In making the Psalms about Christ, we have then forced them to become about "ourselves and our particular situation" as Christians. We're not allowing them to speak the way they originally spoke - to Jews, and to worship of the One God in the Temple. Christ was a Jew himself, and would have seen it this way, I'm sure; that's what interests me, personally.

So IMO there are two ways to look at this. I don't mind going with Leo's view about archetypes, but I think we should recognize that these songs come out of another, earlier tradition - and tread gently here.

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Nigel M
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This is maybe where the push-pull effect comes into operation. One thing that stands out clearly from the Jewish scriptures is the yearning for the better life – a recognition that:

If there is a God who created and formed all that is, and if that God is a good and just God, then that God would not be satisfied with anything less than perfection. Injustice is an imperfection, therefore God is not satisfied with it. Because God is good and just, he will correct imperfections for the better of his creation.

From this we get that casting forward we find in the texts, a “When can I go and meet with God” (Ps. 1:2), or the more obvious future references to the restoration of creation. When it came time to compile the canon and decide on the order of the books, Genesis 1 came up front. I don’t think this was an accident; I think it was placed there because the compilers recognised that it provided a very important framework for assessing the perfect against the contemporary imperfections. The rest of the Jewish books could be held up against that standard.

Jesus and his followers were then able to look back, through the lens of those texts, and feel the yearning. Part of the yearning covered the identity of a servant of God who would suffer on behalf of creation. This figure emerges gradually through the textual history – a figure that also looks for completion. Recognising Jesus as that figure could then be said to be in line with the yearnings of the older authors; part of the same story.

Reason and purpose, backwards and forwards, push and pull?

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TubaMirum
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Well, it's all an interesting question, Nigel. Yes, I think there is that "push-pull" thing going on; just right now I started thinking of it almost like a person thinks of the two natures of Christ: 100% human and 100% divine.

This one goes: the Hebrew Scriptures are 100% prophecy-of-Christ and 100% Jewish-Scriptures-and-songs-for-worship. [Biased]

That's in order to give proper respect to original intent (and to our Jewish brothers and sisters, since these Holy Scriptures were originally theirs, and which we have borrowed) and also to whatever might be found there - I go with Isaiah on this, mostly - that looks forward to Christ, perhaps in that archetypal way that Leo mentioned. For me - and especially given the history of the Church - it's crucially important to respect the Hebrew Bible for what it is, and to try to understand it from a Jewish point of view.

But I grew up listening to Messiah, and seeing Isaiah as prophecy seems almost second nature to me now, too. (Actually, Isaiah is the hardest one for me to look at in the other way!)

So the push-pull is within me at this point, too. Another Christian Koan, maybe?

[ 19. June 2007, 14:45: Message edited by: TubaMirum ]

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the Ænglican
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The search for levels of meaning within the biblical text is rarely about selecting an either/or but a both/and. And, in the case of the Psalter it's a both/and/and/and/and/and...

They can be read as human expressions of emotion in regard to their circumstances.

They can be read as the words of Christ prayed concerning his Church.

They can be read as products of Israelite liturgical poets as they negotiated their context in light of Canaanite/Ugaritic--even Akkadian influences

They can be read as the songs of the saints on the moral life (the babies we dash against the rocks are the incipient vices taking root in our souls...)

And the list goes on... It really shouldn't be one or the other--all of the levels inform and enrich the others IMO.

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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Nigel M
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quote:
Originally posted by the Ænglican:
It really shouldn't be one or the other--all of the levels inform and enrich the others IMO.

I can certainly see the force of this. There are multiple readings, or angles of reading, that can lead to a variety of significances for each age. Is there an overarching method of validation for this, though, do you think? If, for example, the author literally intended to refer to the physical bashing of babies against rocks, then would that not rule out an interpretation that sought to spiritualise it away (or internalise it as referring to our negative emotions)?
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the Ænglican
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Well, Nigel, we've got a couple of things going on there. First is a debate about authorial intent, second a debate about the literal meaning. I think you're actually going for authorial intent because I read that passage as hyperbole which would alter a flat literal meaning to a more nuanced function of the language--yes, to shock, horrify, and to communicate the author's experience of pain at the hands of the Babylonians and Edomites--but not necessary prescribe practice.

I'm not trying to fudge the text or overly soften it, I just believe that a literal meaning has to take schemes and tropes into account.

What you seem to be getting at (and please correct me if I've misread you) is that authorial intent is in some way a controlling category that should restrict the range of possible meanings. Therefore, a "responsible" interpretation is one that would fall inside the scope of the author's intent. Philosophically and hermeneutically I'd disagree. Authorial intent *is* important--but a text has a life of its own apart from its author.

[ 20. June 2007, 13:43: Message edited by: the Ænglican ]

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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Nigel M
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I've spent the better part of two decades wondering about that authorial intent control! I see the need for some form of control and authorial is the least of all control evils out there at the moment, I think. I define the literal meaning as the meaning the author literally meant - whether it be figurative, historical, poetic (which can include historical), etc. So linguistics underlie interpretation (and therefore underlie theology). This is to distinguish interpretation from literalistic methods which can put preconceived theology (or views of God) before interpretation...

I was never that convinced by the arguments for the text having its own life - the sound of a tree falling when there's no one around! I accept that a tree falling will make a sound and a text carries denotations, but meaning and significance surely only reside - or come to fruition - through the human interface?

Nigel

[ 20. June 2007, 14:54: Message edited by: Nigel M ]

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the Ænglican
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At the end of the day, I come down that the real locus of control is the community in which the texts are being read and enacted. Out of the range of possible meanings that responsibly proceed from the text (i.e., that are possible given the grammar, syntax, and diction), certain reading communities will privilege some over others at their discretion.

Where this becomes a problem is when we start asking how "communities" get defined and who gets to define them--after all, that's one of the problems in today's Anglican Communion... Too, people may well exist in negotiation between several reading communities.

I realize this may come of as very postmodern and all, but it's the best way I've found to hold in tension the fact that Jewish communities, Christian communities and academic communities all read these texts differently and that none of them have the one exclusive "right" meaning.

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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Nigel M
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I found it interesting that the process of understanding these Scriptures for me has turned out to be the reverse of what I now consider to be the right process. I grew up in church environment – all that Sunday School, bible class, sermon scene – and later went to study theology. So the first thing I am taught from an early age is theology – the structures, schemes and so on; the ‘what we believe.’ Later, after I had been theologised properly, I was introduced to the process of interpretation: how one gets to the theology - all that hermeneuting and exegesising. Finally I took myself into the realm of linguistics – how language is structured and how it operates.

It was after reflecting on all this that I realised I should really have done it the other way round: we get our understanding of God and how to live as a person of God (the theology) from the way we as humans interpret the Bible (yes – we can read the giants of theology before us, but they get their understandings ultimately from the Bible). We reach understanding as a result of using language; we read, communicate and think using language. So in order to understand we need to ‘know’ language. Hence, ultimately everything is derived from language usage (I include non-verbal communication in this, though in practice we are pretty much deprived of that source when we come to written texts). There is a case for saying that we can know God only through language, though let me quickly temper that by agreeing with Michael Polanyi when he said that we can reach a point where “We know more than we can tell.” This is a small area of knowledge, though, and if we cannot tell, then we are somewhat hard pushed to theologise!

So, the order basically is: language => interpretation => theology.

This gives me some hope for lasso-ing validated meanings: grappling with linguistics before tackling other contextual issues. This involves the usual culprits: establishing the text, consideration of genre and structure, co-text... but also crucially gives credence to the author behind the text as someone who seeks to achieve something in writing; he has a reason (looking backwards) and a purpose (looking forwards) in doing so. I think it is possible to get a decent way towards establishing that purpose – enough at any rate to provide a framework that validates various readings of a text.

And then there is the role of the Holy Spirit in all this.... though it is harder to adduce him as evidence!

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the Ænglican
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I think it's precisely the factor of the Holy Spirit, though, that de-stabilizes the importance of the author... While I don't believe in direct verbal inspiration I believe that a significant part of the Spirit's activity in and with the biblical text is in the act of interpretation. The record of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, well hell, the sermons *throughout* Acts have Luke showing us the Apostles discovering new meanings and senses in the text when read in light of the resurrection. As I believe the Spirit is a prime mover in the Church through the ages, I'd suggest that how Spirit guided communities have interpreted the text are at least as valid as the meanings of the author. Again--they all should be held in a creative tension together.

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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Nigel M
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That’s interesting, because I take the role to HS as a support for the author, rather than de-stabilising him. At the same time I agree that the HS guides interpretation today. My take would go like this: I link author-ship to author-ity, in the sense that the inspiration for authoring texts lies in the human author’s relationship with God as the one with authority. If the author of Psalm 1, for example felt inspired by the HS to write that particular piece of poetry, he did so because he already had a relationship involving communication with God (it’s that language thing again!). His inspiration didn’t come out of the blue, as it were.

Similarly, because the same HS is available today to assist with interpretation, a valid interpretation would have to be one that is based on the meaning that was authored with authority, if you see what I mean – the combination here of human and divine authorship in Psalm 1. My view is that it is unlikely that the HS would author one particular meaning only to inspire a ‘meaning’ today that would be mutually incompatible.

It might help if I drew on E. D. Hirsch’s distinction between meaning and significance here (from Hirsch, Jr., E. D. Validity in Interpretation, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1967). ‘Meaning’ is what the author meant by his use of a particular series of words in a text. ‘Significance,’ on the other hand, is what emerges from the interaction between a reader and that text – it is what the text ‘means’ for today, if you like: its interpretation.

Using this distinction, there are multiple significances that have been drawn from single texts. Psalm one on this thread thus far, for example. As you say, the community of believers have been producing these significances from day one- and continue to do so. Hey are applying the meaning to make it relevant for each occasion. I certainly like the idea of the community acting as a sort of quality assurance process, sifting those significances to ensure validity. That at least provides a boundary within which interpretation can take place. What drew me along these paths, though, was the question in my mind: What do we do when the community produce mutually incompatible significances / interpretations? What test of validity do we have then?

As an example: in 1983 R. T. Kendall published a book, Once Saved, Always Saved (second edition 1992), arguing for assurance that believers will get to heaven, no matter what work or lack of work they did in their earthly lives. In 1996, David Pawson responded with Once Saved, Always Saved? in which he criticises this view in favour of the need for our staying ‘in Jesus’ to ensure we will get to heaven. In other words, salvation can be lost. That’s a modern example of two popular teachers within evangelicalism, both referring to the same texts, yet reaching opposite conclusions. They merely reflect a history of debate on this. This sort of example could be replicated on issues across Christendom, from the early church onwards. So, I am left with a predicament. As a Christian, who do I believe? The only test of validity, it seems to me, is to persevere with analysing authorial intent. Until something better comes along, that is!

Thanks for pursuing this issue - I'm finding it helpful.

Nigel

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the Ænglican
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Sorry to kill discussion of the actual psalm in favor of technical stuff... [Hot and Hormonal]

So let me add this: I've often been struck by the agricultural metaphors in the middle section of Psalm 1. The righteous are *literally* rooted in God's creation. They're well sunk with good roots. The wicked on the other hand are the dessicated chaff with no integral connection to anything--they blow and are ephemeral. There's something about that construct I've always liked--the righteous are those who are hooked into reality--God's reality--whereas the wicked not only don't "get it" but are somehow less substantial for it.

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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Nigel M
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quote:
Originally posted by the Ænglican:
Sorry to kill discussion of the actual psalm in favor of technical stuff...

It's not time wasted; it's useful to see how looking at a text can bring up a whole range of topics!

quote:
Originally posted by the Ænglican:
...the righteous are those who are hooked into reality--God's reality--whereas the wicked not only don't "get it" but are somehow less substantial for it.

The rooting in creation makes a lot of sense: God's people should be more 'real' and in touch with creation than those who are not God's people. Links in nicely with the Stewardship theme in the creation accounts.

Still on Ps. 1: has anyone any idea why this particular Psalm was chosen to head up the entire Psalter? I'm assuming it wasn't accidental; the fact that the Israelites divvied up the Psalms into 5 separate sections or books suggests that there was a plan. The whole Psalter ends with a series of doxologies / Hallelujahs, which is interesting because quite a few English language hymnals put those sort of praise songs up front. Is Ps. 1 meant to be a scene-setter for what follows? A major theme? A summary of the rest?

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the Ænglican
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Hard to say on ordering. I've seen it argued on the strength of the Psalms Scroll from Qumran that the ordering was a relatively late endeavor but certainly the Septuagint proves that it was in order by the mid-second century BC or so.

The blessing is probably one reason (but pace Ps 111) but that fact that it is a short, well-rounded psalm on the importance of meditating on Torah has a lot to do with it. (And in doing so, tells us some important things about the priorities of those who were doing the ordering, right?)

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The subject of religious ceremonial is one which has a special faculty for stirring strong feeling. --W. H. Frere

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