Wednesday 9 November 2011

Two hour review of the first 10 psalms

With some judicious questions and criticisms, CSRS Visiting Research Fellow, Bill Morrow helped me make a necessary course correction. He suggested from my answers to the question - why are you doing this - that I have conflicting motives striving for primacy.  One solid one is enough. I now know what I must focus on in any comments I make on the psalms. I am looking first at recurrence patterns. I am not a commentator.  I expect my translations to stand, but his review of the first 10 psalms pointed out some skills I need to hone to make the translations as precise as possible so that they reflect the focus I am suggesting. I will continue to report the odd experiment, but I don't expect to blog much except for the scheduled posts at the other blog. They are like the carrot pulling the donkey forward to carry the cart.  That post on Psalm 98 is cool - it shows how 97-98 are framed as a single poem.

I am most grateful to Bill.  A good teacher is a special gift. I didn't go to school to learn this stuff. Instead I spent 40 years in the database world - a skill I am using to pursue my research into the text. That's what I will eventually report. I am of course also grateful to many who share their knowledge through blogging on the Hebrew Bible.

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