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Saturday 5 October 2024

Poetry and prose - a wrap

I count just under 48,000 syllables in the psalms. Of those just over 5000 have ornaments, elaborations of the reciting pitch designed to shape the musical phrases. There are just over 48,000 syllables in Genesis. Of those 5500 have ornaments. These are very similarly sized books. Genesis has 1533 verses; Psalms 2527. Obviously the verses are longer in Genesis.

The tenor of Genesis is on the pitch B for 75% of the chapters. The tenor in the Psalms is much more evenly spread across the 6 mainly used pitches. 

Book Syllables c d e f g A B C
PSALMS 47,781 n/a 1.29 20.73 19.44 15.41 19.66 17.78 5.68
GENESIS 48,142 1.63 3.52 19.06 12.74 16.20 11.25 24.05 11.55

Clearly I can -- after several weeks of trials of my memory and corrections of perpetual typos and other errors -- do this for all the books. Thanks to ChatGPT for pointing me in this direction. It is a result. We can describe a chapter or a set of chapters with the tenor and ambitus and we have a basic distinction between them, This shows again that the deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura has explicatory value. We see a difference between poetry and prose in the variable tenor of a book like the psalms.

Remember the accents below the text. These are the column headings c through C below. Without that distinction of above and below, there is no concept of the variable reciting note. The expression of the musical phrases completely replaces the confusing concepts of disjunction, conjunction, and continuous dichotomy. Let those terms have a lobotomy. They cannot explain anything consistently.

What we se below is that prose consistently is announcement - on the dominant B (munah). With the exception of Lamentations, which is appeal and lament (C). The voice of God in scripture uses C extensively - lamenting and appealing to us his creatures to amend our ways. The poetry is variable tenor, ranging from E to C. The overall tenor of Proverbs and Job is A, the rest note. Obviously there is refinement at the chapter and verse grouping levels. But this is a result that yields an overall view of the love song that is the Old Testament. It's time we listened.
Torah
Book Syllables c d e f g# A B C
GENESIS 48,142 1.63 3.52 19.06 12.74 16.20 11.25 24.05 11.55
EXODUS 39,645 1.76 4.10 18.73 12.36 16.14 11.10 24.09 11.73
LEVITICUS 27,733 1.86 4.11 19.70 12.75 15.89 10.73 23.48 11.47
NUMBERS 39,206 1.92 4.09 19.21 12.18 17.49 11.11 23.60 10.39
DEUTERONOMY 34,316 1.77 3.86 18.72 12.18 14.89 10.71 26.47 11.39
Prophets
Former Prophets
JOSHUA 24,345 1.57 3.33 20.11 10.98 14.78 10.17 26.38 12.68
JUDGES 23,627 1.58 3.10 18.45 11.27 14.19 10.84 27.63 12.94
1 SAMUEL 31,315 1.63 3.31 18.64 11.18 13.82 9.94 26.79 14.70
2 SAMUEL 25,868 1.62 3.66 17.43 11.71 14.42 10.81 26.11 14.24
1 KINGS 31,289 1.67 3.29 18.78 11.01 13.65 10.11 29.30 12.20
2 KINGS 29,185 1.37 3.76 18.80 11.10 13.23 10.00 29.38 12.35
Latter Prophets - Major
ISAIAH (all) 40,425 1.13 2.59 16.76 12.60 16.90 11.28 23.55 15.19
ISAIAH (1-39) 23,389 1.16 3.05 16.99 13.09 17.25 11.39 24.28 12.80
ISAIAH (40-55) 10,464 0.86 1.83 16.07 12.14 16.71 11.66 22.66 18.06
ISAIAH (56-66) 6,572 1.48 2.13 17.03 11.59 15.98 10.30 22.35 19.14
JEREMIAH 51,395 1.57 3.48 19.45 11.23 14.22 9.71 26.84 13.51
EZEKIEL 45,431 1.21 2.71 18.61 11.19 14.41 10.56 27.60 13.70
Latter Prophets - Minor -- The Twelve
HOSEA 5,674 .53 1.82 19.63 11.63 18.38 11.19 24.15 12.67
JOEL 2,293 .87 1.74 17.97 11.12 16.62 11.82 26.91 12.95
AMOS 4,776 .94 2.89 18.40 12.65 15.26 10.78 24.02 15.05
OBADIAH 668 1.35 3.59 22.60 14.07 15.12 9.43 23.05 10.78
JONAH 1,625 1.66 3.88 18.40 11.02 15.88 10.22 24.98 13.97
MICAH 3,366 .86 2.20 17.20 10.58 17.23 12.30 25.37 14.26
NAHUM 1,347 1.48 2.75 18.86 10.62 18.41 13.44 21.53 12.92
HABAKKUK 1,574 .57 2.03 14.17 12.13 19.06 11.75 22.68 17.60
ZEPHANIAH 1,761 1.65 2.73 17.04 11.13 15.28 10.22 28.39 13.57
HAGGAI 1,424 2.95 4.14 14.89 10.67 14.47 11.66 29.49 11.73
ZECHARIAH 7,462 1.19 2.73 18.02 11.98 14.67 11.19 29.12 11.08
MALACHI 2,077 .63 2.36 14.97 10.35 13.38 12.13 29.18 17.00
Writings - Books of Truth - The 3 Poetry Books
Book Syllables c d e f# g A B C
PSALMS 47,781
1.29 20.73 19.44 15.41 19.66 17.78 5.68
PROVERBS 15,801
0.29 17.92 16.66 19.09 22.47 21.59 1.97
JOB (all) 19,458 0.29 0.68 19.28 15.22 17.24 20.84 22.47 3.97
JOB (2-41) 17,585
0.27 19.53 15.68 17.61 21.93 21.81 3.17
Writings - The 5 Scrolls
Book Syllables c d e f g# A B C
SONG 3,082 .55 1.91 20.18 11.16 18.53 9.83 23.46 14.37
RUTH 3,024 1.69 2.68 18.78 12.30 14.81 10.45 24.01 15.28
LAMENTATIONS 3,601 1.31 2.64 19.30 11.64 16.61 6.44 20.38 21.69
QOHELET 6,671 1.38 3.36 17.90 15.02 15.78 9.79 25.87 10.90
ESTHER 7,285 1.50 3.24 17.86 9.55 11.87 9.50 32.41 14.07
Writings - Other
DANIEL 14,646 1.38 2.46 17.95 10.36 13.20 10.03 32.54 12.07
EZRA 9,465 1.28 3.02 21.24 12.81 14.31 9.20 28.48 9.67
NEHEMIAH 13,605 1.83 3.41 19.74 12.08 14.14 9.33 29.65 9.81
1 CHRONICLES 26,350 1.86 3.25 21.47 12.60 17.28 9.87 23.03 10.64
2 CHRONICLES 33,359 1.73 3.29 20.18 9.98 13.78 9.19 30.18 11.66

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