Friday, 4 March 2011

On being and becoming

Sue points to this fascinating article by Daniel Boyarin on Hypostases etc. I think theologians live the same lives as we do but speak a different language. Doug is looking for new metaphors. I find it curious that the only verb that the Blue Letter Bible does not list effectively is the verb to be. I think being and becoming in spite of the many verbless clauses in Hebrew, will have a significant impact on thinking and growing in the psalms.
That is why, in a nutshell, the psalms are so important. Though they are ancient individual and corporate prayers, they become by our reading, a word from God for us, to us, and in us.
So the psalms begin the 100 or so occurrences of this root with Psalm 1:3

and that one will be like a tree
transplanted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its time
and its leaf does not wither
and in all that it makes, it thrives

And what do they end with?

An insight Of David
when he was in the cave
A prayer

It doesn't seem conceptually significant :)  But in Psalm 119, the promise remains:

There your hand will be to help me
for I have chosen your precepts


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