I think it is vital that the psalms be explored face to face. But some of this six week course has also found its way into video...
Here's my current announcement and full set of slides [under continuous update] Feedback welcome. I would happily run this onsite for anyone who wants it. [Now fully drafted in videos]
I was interested in the order. Though without a bit more ideas of what the titles mean (except the first that is very fully spelled out) I may be imagining the content wrongly. Or is The Discipline of Reading a sort of conclusion and Next a postscript?
ReplyDeleteI am just gauging interest here - there is some already. Of course I would love to come to NZ too - maybe after the pilot :)
DeleteI will be fleshing out some approaches and questions over the next two months - and as the sessions develop around the group that forms.
1, introducing the Psalter - could be lecture followed by discussions of questions
2, the whole, read through the inscriptions - also lecture + questions
Finding macro structures - particularly around repeated poems, the Book structure, the Elohist, and the chiasm around the acrostics
3, the game, wordplay, and acrostics
Translating - this should be fun - I might begin with an exercise in translating olde English to modern - then point out some of the many difficulties with Hebrew - and how our own experience colours the process
4, themes
Discovering ourselves in the Psalms - more subjective - will look at the theme of the kings or the sovereigns - and which characters we are invited to identify with - the hapless, the wicked, the tongue, the merciful etc
5, the discipline of reading
How will we find the discipline to read? - I am finding this difficult - I am reading through the Hebrew at the moment 2 or 3 psalms a day
6, next - want to look at lots of music during the prior sessions - maybe begin with it - but then to show coding systems and how the te'amim lend themselves to music as in the work of Suzanne Haik Vantoura
Happy to hear of thoughts from you - maybe come to Victoria BC for a cameo visit via the 5-minute Bible