Biblical Studies Carnival for February 2020

Welcome to Février Gras.

This is The Biblical Studies Carnival 3x7x2³

completing 168 monthly editions since the inaugural BS carnival 180 months ago,
music, poetry, art in celebration of those studying the ancient texts.

Official colours of Mardi Gras

The Krewe of TNK
The head of the first parade is Deane Galbraith presenting Marc Zvi Brettler's lecture on Jewish Biblical Scholarship.

Torah

Day 1 - The earth was a right old mess²

All sorts of free goodies distributed from this krewe.

Laurent Sangpo gives us a 5 minute reception history on Le Déluge de Michel-Ange."...il suit ainsi l’exégèse ancienne, qui voyait dans la catastrophe la représentation symbolique de notre monde."


Mark Leuchter and Zev Farber describe the relationship of the siblings, Moses, Miriam, and Aaron, "partners of similar standing in redeeming the people".
Carol Meyers asks Who wrote the song?

Athalya Brenner-Idan has updated an essay from 2016, Are female readers included in the Decalogue?

Sandra Jacobs writes on Exodus 21:22-25: Accidental Injuries in a Public Brawl, 3 interpretations of the degree and type of compensation required.

A d'varling from the Velveteen Rabbi, "if you keep making that face, you'll get stuck that way."

Prophets

... wasn't it something to behold that mess

Pete Enns brings up the violence against the Canaanites.

Aaron Koller writes on Composing the Song of Deborah, "here we have two empirical models with clear parallels to the biblical Song of Deborah, and both are well attested and fairly well understood."

Judges 5:2 (The whole song is here.)

Saul was Tall by Brian Doak, Bodies speak ... Solomon has no body of significance. ... Hezekiah possesses no beauty... Josiah is a complete ghost.

Brant Pitre introduces the lessons for the Presentation in the Temple with particular emphasis on Malachi and the Twelve.

Writings

... A symphony of voices

A hole in the parchment,
through which the word 'gratiam' ('grace')
is visible

Kate Thomas presents a medieval manuscript in praise of the Psalms. De laude psalmorum. "This short Latin treatise explains why saying the Psalms was considered spiritually beneficial, and which Psalms were good for which purposes. It opens a window onto how medieval people understood one of the most important liturgical and devotional books of the Middle Ages, the Psalter."

Brent Niedergall posts on a textual issue in Ruth. "What if an English Bible translation translated a Hebrew word meaning 'he' as 'she'?"

Esther: Girls of marriageable age
in the ancient world were much younger
than brides today in the western world.

Marg Mowczko begins a series on Esther, and continues with a second post, For such a time as this. The girls "weren’t volunteering for a wonderful opportunity. They weren’t competing for a marvellous prize. Most may well have been taken against their will and against the hopes of their families who might never see their girls again."

Daniel became a writer

Phillip Long continues the unrolling of Daniel. "Belshazzar can look no worse, his mother publicly rebuking his cowardice! (Did she stop to comb his hair and tell him to tuck his shirt in as well?)" He must be nearly right through to the end - if that's not the end, it's close.

Daniel 5:25 - setting the words, the accents in their simplest form

Announced this month via the Times of Israel: A 616-page codex that was written in 1028.

Psalm 150 Karaite

An article with some images is available here from The Jewish Quarterly Review. "NEARLY A THOUSAND YEARS have passed since Zechariah Ben 'Anan finished the demanding work of copying Ketuvim (Writings), the third part of the Hebrew Bible, in a manuscript found by sheer happenstance on a dusty shelf in the Karaite synagogue of Cairo in late July 2017"


The tail of the Krewe of TNK

Your host posted a tabular comparison of two strategies for explaining the accents of the TNK and a brief on reading with the music stimulated by the medieval book on the accents translated by Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew.

Benjamin Kantor officially launches the Tiberian Hebrew page here. Jonathan Orr-Stav responds to a question on Tiberian pronunciation.

Jim Davila highlights an article on dating the Hebrew Bible through linguistics.

And, via William Ross, the LXX has its international day.

A quote from the obit for S. R. Driver (for links see the final parade below):

The Old Testament must remain an ever-fresh fountainhead of living truth, able to invigorate and restore, to purify and refine, to ennoble and enrich, the moral and spiritual being of man.

The Krewe of the NT

Travis Proctor heads the second parade with an exploration of the demonic body, "residual souls of antediluvian giants".

Gospels and Acts

... like the first glimmer of rising

If it quacks...

A few goodies distributed to the people from this krewe may require a payment. But there's enough even if you can't get into the post-parade-party.

Bart Ehrman reviews a Newly Discovered gospel. "rarely does anyone actually discuss the actual *evidence*". His post reaches back into the archives.

Ekaterini G. Tsalampouni points us to an article on the ending of Mark.

Jacob Prahlow completes his series on the Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John.

James McGrath posts his impressions of the Enoch Seminar's dedicated session at AAR/SBL on Adele Reinhartz's book Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John.

Johnson Thomaskutty writes on the Characterization of Thomas in the fourth Gospel.

Andrew Perriman writes in response to Michael Bird, on the church and the mission of Jesus. "Did they succeed? Fail? Or did someone move the goalposts?"

Ken Schenck points out his work on Mark and Acts as part of his project Through the Bible in Ten Years.

Richard Beck continues his series on the gospel according to the Lord of the Rings.

A Matthean Thunderbolt?

Ian Paul republished a post on the influence of John on the synoptic gospels, and explores a spoof on choosing your own Jesus. It being that time of the year, he also did a review of the temptations of Jesus.

Michael Pahl encourages following the teaching on economics from Jesus.

Jim Gordon would have us consider ornitheology. His series for Lent holds promise. Here is the leap-day special, the pearl.

Chuck Jones points out Vizualizing Acts, graphic online support for reading Acts.

Letters

... What do you say

James Tabor writes about What Paul claimed to have seen.

Tim Gombis explores chapters 2 to 5 of Romans with particular reference to boasting.
Andrew Perriman posts on theological prisons vs historical readings of Romans.

Michael Kok continues his series on Corinthians, beginning with notes on Peter, and Apollos.

James McGrath points to a note on Paul's letter carriers.

Henry Neufeld writes about How to Read Hebrews 4.

Revelation

... It won't be long

Very short parade.

The tail of the Krewe of the NT
Mike Aubrey wants more language resources for translation.
Marg Mowcsko talks about "preaching" words in the NT.

The tail of the first two Krewes
Pete Enns and Jared Byas have some advice to their fellow citizens on how to read the Bible in 2020.
Jim West reviews the Jesus Bible, i.e. how not to read the Bible.

Other Krewes

... How many powers

James McGrath posts on the SpaceX Rocket bouncing off the firmament. You can watch the whole thing with exegetical commentary from a booster seat. Just click on the image.

Archaeology
Jim Davila asks if Solomon's temple had competition? He also has some thoughts on information in a vitrified brain. And a list of posts on the BAR spring 2020 release including one from the original xkv8r.

Todd Bolen reports on extensive ruins of a Canaanite temple dating to the 12th century BCE at Lachish.

Yana Tchekhanovets and Leonid Belyaev write about Russian archaeology in The Ancient Near East Today.

Textual criticism

Drew Longacre reports on Feature-extraction methods for historical manuscript dating based on handwriting analysis.

James McGrath gets around to writing up the 2019 Digital Humanities AAR/SBL sessions in San Diego.

Jim West quotes Jerome in defense of errors in his rendering of the Bible.

Sarah Allen interviews Zachary Cole on his chapter in Myths and Mistakes.

Theology and Liturgy

Great St Mary's,
the Selwyn Consort via
the Minerva Festival

Sarah MacDonald presents "Silent in the Churches", an exploration of Music in the liturgy by female composers.

NT Wright explains penal substitution, 'according to the Scriptures'. And here's a C.R.A.S.S.H course on explaining.

Who knew that James McGrath was an award winning Mandaic poet?

Matt Page is still blogging about Bible films. Here is an entry on the Netflix Messiah.

Both Bosco Peters and Airtonjo have things to point out about Querida Amazônia.

John Bergsma on the Sacred Page lays out the lessons for the sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Alex Finkelson at Scribes of the Kingdom wonders about the promises to David.

A slightly early entry for the Revelation parade from Doug Chaplin. (Ah well, February is a short month and January is long, so let's give them 30 days each this year... and he is still writing occasionally.)

Bart Ehrman has some interesting questions from Buddhists.

John Jillions writes on the religious attitudes of some famous Roman skeptics.

Journals and Reviews and other things
James McGrath points out a new open-access Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity.

James also notes this announcement on Women interpreting the Scripture through music and the arts.

Kelsi Morrison-Atkins reviews Moshe Blidstein. Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature. 'Blidstein guides the reader through the “web of allusions” that characterized early Christian purity discourses in the first through third centuries.'

Noah Benjamin Bickart reviews Paula Fredricksen's When Christians were Jews. "If anything is missing in her excellent book, it is a more robust engagement with rabbinic texts."

Steve Walton notes a set of essays from a conference, Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity.

Ben Witherington's book on Priscilla is reviewed by Kelley Matthews.

Bart Ehrman has a very nice promotion of his book, Heaven and Hell.

Fetch

Brent Niedergall is working with Bel and the Dragon on a Reddit reading group here.

Jim Davila points out Sonja Noll's book on the Semantics of Silence in Biblical Hebrew. And a collection of essays on Parables. "Essays cover parables in the synoptic Gospels, Rabbinic midrash, and parabolic tales and fables in the Babylonian Talmud. Three essays address parables in Islam and Buddhism." And Henk de Waard's Jeremiah 52, "Jeremiah 52 is not a mere appendix to the book, but a golah-oriented epilogue, indicating the contrasting destinies of pre-exilic Judah and the exilic community in Babylon."

Kerry Sonia reviews Shawn Flynn's Children in Ancient Israel

Kathleen Gallagher Elkins reviews The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field.

BLT reports on Suzanne McCarthy's book as told to James McGrath by her sister Ruth Hayhoe.

Phil Long reviews All Things New, Revelation as canonical capstone, by Brian Tabb.

Remembering

... And morning

Suzanne McCarthy 76 months ago reminded us of a riddle related to time.

Here is a Sunday Superlatives post from the same year, 2013, from Rachel Held Evans.

Jim Gordon reminds us of the 75th anniversary of the death of Bonhoeffer.

The tail of the whole carnival is a reflection by Marc Zvi Brettler on the 106th yahrzeit of S. R. Driver of whom, it is said: He taught the faithful criticism and the critics faith. Read Marc's article to find out who said this and more importantly, why.

And as a coda, this music, which as Matthew Larkin says, if you allow yourself the necessary time, "will leave you speechless".

Next Carnivals

Brent Niedergall hosts in March 2020 (Due April 1). Phillip Long is looking for volunteers for the rest of 2020. Contact him at plong42@gmail.com or twitter dm @plong42 to volunteer to host!
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(1) The carnival number is an even number higher than 148, (June 2018 - 20 months ago).
The number of this February carnival is the product of the first two perfect numbers, 6 and 28, and is also the count of primes less than 1000. There are 50 words in TNK with gematria = 168. See also.
(2) right hand side linked poetry snippets by James McGrath.

Lent 4

These poems by Herbert are simply wonderful. This one is so accurate and timeless. Science is what reason has borrowed from nature.

Lent 3

Herbert does it againe. I wonder if Jim Gordon can keep this up for 40 days.

Recap - from words to music, learning the Hebrew Scriptures

Zeal
I have to begin with zeal. What motivates anyone to learn about difficult history? For years I read and had read to me the King James scriptures, sometimes well, sometimes with ignorance. I knew the Scriptures were difficult. Not just for their language, but because we started reading with self-serving assumptions. For us in the 1950s, it was the empire, all that pink on the map.

Diagramming, showing parallels
Nonetheless I was intrigued and very curious about the whole story. In my early 60s, beginning in 2006, my company was developing a diagramming tool for logic modeling, so I began diagramming the Psalms in Hebrew. This was a source of excellent test cases for the software. I have all those old diagrams offline. They were my means of learning the square script.

I began to learn Hebrew with discipline because of the experience of attending a conference on Christian Theology and the Epistle to the Hebrews at St Andrews, 2006. I was shown a narrow path to the definition of 'the son'. If 'the son' is in dialogue with 'the father', and the dialogue is represented in the book of Psalms, how could I avoid learning the original tongue of the psalms so that I could myself learn the language of what it meant to Jesus, learning his role as son. You 'know' perhaps where this leads, but we must not short-circuit the learning process. The path is difficult, again because of those self-serving assumptions we carry.

An example of diagramming a psalm

Notice all the analysis behind the scenes that can be done, graphs and queries etc. The more data I had, the more I could measure as long as I got the stems and the glosses more or less right. It was at this time I began to realize the extensive number of decisions made by a translator.

Database, controlling the content
The diagramming tool morphed into a full interactive development environment and I developed screens to see the Hebrew Bible from several points of view. I wasn't the first to do such things nor will I be the last. But I was chasing the concordance bug. How close can a language map to another language? Can it be 1:1? No. But it seems it might be closer than traditional translations sometimes allow.

Patterns of word usage
Without concordance, it is impossible to see patterns of word usage in a translation. I had the idea that Hebrew poetry played particularly on repeated sounds. To lose the repeated sounds in translation seemed to lose the affect that was intended by the poet.

Here's an example of why concordant translation is critical to understanding the psalms. Psalms 1 and 2 are framed by two words used in the sequence a-b in Psalm 1:1 and in reverse sequence in psalm 2:12. The two psalms each use the same series of key words. The table below shows them at a glance. (sit-mutter-day-give-judgment-perish). This is not a threat, but a consequence. And there are several escape routes in these psalms. Meditation on the instruction (Torah) is one of them (Psalm 1). Searching for insight, accepting warnings, serving the Mystery, taking refuge, ... all these words point to the other escape routes (Psalm 2).

Keywords in Psalms 1 and 2. 

Most people hear and see parallelism. But such constructions are not as obvious as deliberate repetition of keywords. With a clear glossary by stem in the database, I was able to find these markers of poetic thought and story-telling with computer algorithms. And I was happy doing that work. From 2015-2018 I returned to and completed my translation of The Hebrew Bible, paying close attention now to the music as well as recurring words. I am very grateful both for the support of the University of Victoria Center for Studies in Religion and Society, and for the support of my publisher, Energion.

Music
Because I was translating the Psalms, I went to the 2010 conference on the Psalms at Oxford. There I learned about the music embedded in the text by the placement of accents as deciphered by the work of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura. I was immediately attracted to her thesis and by 2015 I realized that I had the data in a form that could be used easily in a computer program to produce a score using the then new language, MusicXML.

So I found myself distracted from translating and I produced the XML for the music of the entire Bible. The programming required me to decode the Hebrew character by character and to transcribe the libretto also. I wasn't learning to hear the language but I was certainly studying the grammar by inference. It took about 3 months to draft the program, and several iterations to get the bugs out. Eventually I got to all the music that you have seen all over my blog in the past 5 years.

An example of the thousands of pages of music
produced from the Leningrad codex by web service and Oracle PL/SQL procedure
(I don't usually include the English in the automated output unless I am working on the piece.)

Still at the beginning of knowledge
I had started composing about 1963. I wrote a piece for my younger sister's funeral. It was performed in Montreal by the St Matthias boys under Normal Hurrle. Unfortunately, the manuscript has disappeared from my archives. Some ATB responses I wrote a year later were found in the basement by my daughter this past summer. She took them away and edited them for use at Ely cathedral in England. I don't remember writing much else but I recall not practicing the organ or piano enough, and I recall how I used manuscript paper. There was no synthesizer feedback from the paper on my early harmony exercises.

55 years later, for the last 8 months, composing is my task again, and I have had software to help me. Blank ms paper is a thing of the past. The harmonic structure of the works I am developing is somewhat determined by the constraints I have placed on myself, namely, to be true to the melodic style uncovered in the music of the Bible. But there is still room for imagination.

To date, I have 'sketched' a number of pieces. I don't know if I have time to grow as a composer. I think I have started too late. You can find examples on my YouTube channel. I approach these things without knowing in advance what will emerge. I have produced a very serious oratorio from Genesis, Job, Jeremiah and several psalms. There are chorales, and lullabies, stories like Jonah, elegies, love songs, sometimes with harp, and maybe woodwinds, strings, timpani, and even
all together.

The opening of the Song of Solomon, (SATB and woodwind trio)
cantus firmus is in the soprano, (transposed down a tone from the default pitch).
This is, significantly, one of 5 books that begins on a note other than the tonic. 

Composers
All the XML files are available online here. Pick the book you want, right click on the XML file and select download. Now you have the raw data. (These are a good start, but there are still a few places where the program's rendition could be improved.) What can you do with it? All the things that composers do when they discover a new source of music from the human community. Much more than a composer of my limited experience can do. Set it in Hebrew, or with a good translation, or without words.

Theologians
Have you considered the impact of music on reading the Hebrew Scriptures? What we have here is a solution to reading: three tools, parallelism, recurring word patterns, and governing it all, a melodic line that gives us the tone of voice.

Lent 2

Another poem, this time by a modern liturgist, Doug Chaplin, based on Augustine. These last two posts are nice things that are not going into the carnival, due out March 1.

Lent

It is Lent and true to character, Living Wittily has posted a poem, Agonie, by George Herbert, that should be read by all. What a gift Herbert is.

Reading with the music

I recently came across a new work by Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, available in PDF form. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0194

But suppose I read the careful work and use its examples, would having the music make it easier? Take a simple two-syllable word, למה (lamah, why) sometimes accented on the first syllable, sometimes on the second. Why is this? This is a reasonably frequent word as you can imagine, as frequent as why is in English. It occurs in the Hebrew Bible 180 times in 171 verses, almost always glossed as why.

I see it is generally accented on the first syllable. In the 150 or so that I scanned I found just over a half-dozen with an accent on the second syllable alone, a similar number with accents (ornaments) on both syllables, and a few with maqaf (hyphen) allowing the accent to be postponed to the next word. (Hint when reading music, the pulse is the first note after the bar line. It always corresponds to an accented syllable. The bars are active until the next reciting note or 25 syllables whichever occurs first.)

The first time the word occurs is in Genesis 4:6.

Genesis 4:6 showing two instances of למה each with the common accentuation.
And Yahweh said to Cain,
Why is it for you to burn with anger, and why has your face fallen?

Genesis 18b-19a provides a pair of these words with one of them accented on the second syllable rather than the more common first.

Genesis 18b-19a two instances of למה with differing accentuation
Why did you not make clear to me that she is your wife? Why did you say she is my sister?

In Genesis 4:6 we see the word occurring on a C and on a g# as reciting note. I have seen it assigned to each one of the reciting notes, as one would expect, depending on the emotive quality required for the music.

1 Samuel 1:8 has 3 instances of the word, each differently set to music.

1 Samuel 1:8 - three instances of למה

Joshua 9:22 is an example of a why on a rest note, as if perhaps, the speaker is expressing quiet confidence.

Joshua 9:22 למה on the subdominant mid-verse rest
Why did you deceive us?

I see too from this PDF (page 195) that there is a third usage of the small vertical stroke, called a ga`ya,  that is indistinguishable in Unicode from silluq and metheg, further complicating the security of knowing (in an interpretive computer program) whether to return to the tonic mid-verse.

But, there is nothing explained in the PDF that is not rendered aptly by the music or that conflicts with the interpretation of the accents that I have promoted on this site. And I have promoted it largely because it has an ease of explanatory power that is unequaled in any other interpretation I have read, (admitting that my reading is limited, and I am quickly bored by an overly complex explanation).

The explanations in the referenced PDF are very clear perhaps because there is no attempt to systematize the lost music or wonder about sequences of accents. In fact, the writer acknowledges that there is a class of 'pitch' accents, implying that the Haïk-Vantoura schema is reasonable.

The passage then goes on to say that the arrangement (tartīb) of the accents may have been based on the practice of the Levites. This is most likely referring to the fixing of the sequence of different pitch accents in the musical cantillation. 

My emphasis.

Biblical Studies Carnivals since June 2018

The Biblioblog list (here) does not yet continue with carnivals after carnival 149 - so here are the rest to date. Hopefully this will aid in updating that other list.

The carnival yet to come will be numbered 168 - but it doesn't really matter much, no month has been missed for quite a while. There was an inadvertent skip (Haplography?) of 'one' number for April 2019. 

The carnivals past (sequentially numbered - and I thought Roman numerals were difficult.)

167 2020: The Carnival Jim West

2019

166 Biblical Studies Carnival for December 2019 Alex Finkelson

165 Biblical Studies Carnival for November 2019 Derek Demars

164 Biblical Studies Carnival for October 2019 Gary Greenberg

163 Biblical Studies Carnival Phillip J. Long

162 Biblical Studies Carnival for August 2019 the Amateur Exegete

161 Biblical Studies Carnival for July 2019 Lindsay Kennedy

160 The Incredibly Hot June Biblical Studies Carnival, Including Lots of Scandal Because of an Unprovenanced Manuscript… Jim West

159 The May 2019 Biblical Studies Carnival  Claude Mariottini

158 The April 2019 Biblical Studies Carnival Claude Mariottini

157 Biblical Studies Carnival 157 March 2019 Spencer Robinson

156 Biblical Studies Carnival 156 February 2019 Bob MacDonald

155 One Carnival to Rule them All: January, 2019 Jim West

2018

154 Biblical Studies Carnival 154 (December 2018) Christopher Scott

153 Biblical Studies Carnival 153 (November 2018) Bob MacDonald (@drmacdonald)

152 Biblical Studies Carnival 152 (October 2018) Jacob Prahlow

151 Biblical Studies Carnival 151 (September 2018) Phillip J. Long

150 Biblical Studies Carnival 150 (August 2018) Kevin Turner

the remaining back to the year dot, March 2005, are here. 168 carnivals over 15 years, 180 months. Missed a dozen.

Upcoming February 2020 Biblical Studies Carnival

on the Inner Harbour, Victoria BC,
an abnormally interesting place
the shoes are in charge
From my first carnival Nov 2012

The 02-2020 Biblical Studies Carnival will be appearing on this blog in just over 10 days. Let me know if you have any posts you might think are suitable.

The carnivals are English and tend to be dominated by English language authors within the domain of the ancient empire. I always try to find studies in fields foreign to me, to avoid excessive parochialism. We could do with more input.

What is substantial for me that I think would interest others?

• something with serious engagement with the Scripture and related documents 
• informed by verifiable study within the author's online presence
• authored by someone credibly engaged with original languages, geographical and historical context, appreciation of the genre of the text under discussion
• understandable, focused, polite discourse, and reliable information

Phil Long is still looking for volunteer hosts from April (due May 1) to the end of the year. Hosting a carnival is an education. It is like checking into dozens of schools in one month. Listening to lectures, learning the prof's approach, and hearing of discussions and conflicts in the discipline. It leads you to think about all the issues that arise in the study of the Bible by scholars.

You can contact Phil at plong42@gmail.com or via direct message @plong42 on Twitter and visit his blog, readingacts.com, for an example of the use of blogging as part of an education program.

A summary of comparisons

I imagine a table set before me, in three columns. The table will present property by property the issues I have outlined in the past 6 weeks. I think that the jury should be able to come to a verdict on whether one method uses and explains more of the embedded information than another.

The property column below defines the question or decision. Each strategy must deal with the information, what is used and what is ignored. Both methods (Sequencing - Col 2 vs Reciting Note - Col 3) ignore some information. Each must also deal with the objective decisions, the musical phrases, the ease of perceiving the result, the ease of the use of musical language, the issue of beauty, of harmonic implications, and other issues.

Property / Decision	Sequencing strategy (Burns, Jacobson)	Reciting Note strategy (Haïk-Vantoura)
Distinguish the function of accents below the text from those above	No distinction in function.	Accents below the text determine the reciting note, from c (21 books only) to d, e, f, g, A, B, C (all books). Those above are ornaments.
Observation of every variation in accent placement	Pays attention to differences in placement.	Does not pay attention to differences in placement below the text. Both ב֖ and ב֭ change the reciting note (in this case to g). Ornaments may have some differences depending on placement. Zarqa and zinor are identical.
Double merkha	one accent among many.	considered equivalent to merkha.
Sof pasuk and Paseq	are observed as relating to the accents.	are not part of the music.
Dropping of observed accents	Burns drops the first of a pair sometimes.	Never drops a defined accent. Accents below the text are completely transparent. Sight reading is as easy as solfege.
Pitch	Accents are at a fixed pitch.	Accents define and are relative to the reciting note
Tonality	Jacobson is a single tonality, major for Torah, minor for haftarah. Burns has shades of possible tonal changes.	Observes tonic, supertonic, and subdominant as cadence points. Dominant and sub-mediant allow for tonality to  vary. Multiple modes supported but rationale for their use is subjective. Tonality immediately suggests clear musical shape.
Sequences of accents	are complex slurred combinations of notes, melismas.	below the text define the reciting note and thus allow sequences to be explained as intervals and triads. Melismas may occur with ornaments.
Variations in accent sequences	are explained with great complexity.	are explained as musical phrases.
Agreed senses	Silluq and Atnah as pauses. Recognizes common pairings and preparation.	Silluq (tonic) and Atnah (subdominant) as cadences. Recognizes common pairings (e.g. revia mugrash) and preparation (e.g. ole veyored prepared by revia or zarqa). Interpretation is different because the yored is equivalent to merkha and thus comes to a cadence on the second (supertonic).
Silluq and Metheg (an error in Unicode design).	Distinguished by reader, not mentioned by Burns, because he uses sof pasuk as terminus.	Distinguished by reader. Metheg is not a note and should not pull the reciting note prematurely to the tonic, but silluq in the middle of a phrase is just a note, not a cadence.
Beauty	the human voice and its flexibility.	the human voice and the sense of tonality.
Tone of voice	not noted.	The tonic (e) for the sense of home,  the subdominant (A) for the sense of rest,  the supertonic (f) for a briefer rest, (in the 3 books only) and always prior to the subdominant if both are in the verse, the dominant (B) for proclamation, the submediant (C) for emotional appeal, the lower notes as preparation for the phrase, sometimes leaping a seventh or an octave for joy.
Passing the test of the wandering mode, tonus peregrinus	Does not pass.	Passes perfectly. Psalms 114 in plainsong and chanting tradition is anticipated by the variable reciting note decision. This surviving melody suggests five of the reciting notes (B g A f e). (SHV did not make this connection. It might have shortened her work. That she arrived here is impressive.)
Efficiency	does not use the consistent placement above and below.	uses more information implicit in the accents.
Clarity	takes experience to hear.	takes experience to hear, may allow the noting of allusions between texts.
Connections between texts	denied.	affirmed and obvious, e.g. the attacca noted for Psalms 115, the clear knowledge of the speeches by the narrator of Job, the highlighting of strophe and structure in poetry and story.
Consistency	has many arcane ‘rules’.	an accent always sounds and is always the same definition within the current reciting note.
Hierarchy	emphasized.	not relevant.
Measurement	not defined.	allows the simple concept of syllables per reciting note as a measure of a verse.

Addendum: For something different, have a listen to the rendering of Psalm 1 on the home page of TiberianHebrew.com, and for contrast, consider this. More work to be done.

Related posts The ladder, in five parts Introduction, Going up to the subdominant, Going down from the subdominant, Verses without a rest on the subdominant, and further subdivisions for long verses. And Recitation analysis.