The Hebrew Bible as a musical and textual puzzle

This post is a restart to my presentation of the Psalms and other stray verses that creep into my blogger's thoughts.

There are so many ways to approach a puzzle. I have had in front of me for many years a massive historical, musical, liturgical, linguistic, literary, holy puzzle. This puzzle is used in a hit or miss fashion by more than half the world. Some have it but have not seen it. Some pass through without hearing it. Some worship it. Some ignore it. Some are deeply touched and cannot explain why?

It has over 300,000 pieces in the traditional canon. Its coding elements are not so numerous to count: 

• 22 or so consonants in its alphabet, 
• 17 vowel signs over, within, and under the syllables of the text, and 
• 12 musical signs located under the letters, 19 musical signs located over the letters. 

About 70 signs in all. This is a slightly uncomfortable number. 

When I approach a puzzle, I try to find and lay out the edge pieces so I can see the overall shape. Hebrew tradition divides it into 24 books in 3 sections, Law, Prophets, and Writings. I spell this as Tanach. The 24 may also be separated into 21 prose books + 3 poetry books. Some pieces are shorter than others, 1 to 4 chapters, rather than 40 to 60 chapters. Christian traditions count 39 books and more, and arrange them in different sequences. For instance, Daniel is included in the prophets by the Christians, but in the writings in the Hebrew Bible. Ruth is included in the history near the Judges in Christian Bibles, and in the Writings as part of a group called the five scrolls in the Hebrew Bible.

I think I more or less backed into this puzzle without a careful plan of approach. I ignored the music in my first pass. This was a serious mistake, but the language around these signs has been thoroughly confused over the last 1000 years. And I could make no sense of it.

People ask, Where should one start? I would start with a few short sections. I would now start with the music. And I will restart with the Psalms. No one can be definitive but: 

• definitely memorize the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis. 
• definitely read its form as mimicked by the stage play, Job, near the beginning of the third section. 
• And when you haven't time to sing, remember that you could be missing the tone of voice and failing to use your ears.

So you might ask, How will I find the music when I want it? Good question. I hope to analyse all the music eventually and perhaps have a 1000 posts on it, a chapter at a time. That will be a revision of all my earlier work. But until then, the music as generated directly from the text is in these links to pdfs.

Torah (torh) is in 5 books in 5 pdfs: Genesis (brawit), Exodus (wmot), Leviticus (viqra), Numbers (bmdbr), and Deuteronomy (dbrim).

The Prophets nbiaim rawonim in 4 books in 4 pdfs: Joshua (ihowy), Judges (wop'tim), Samuel (wmual a & b), and Kings (mlcim a & b), nbiaim akronim in 4 books in 4 pdfs: Isaiah (iwyihu), Jeremiah (irmihu), Ezekiel (ikzqal), and The Twelve (tri ywr: howy, ioal, ymos, yobdih, ionh, mich, nkum, kbquq, xpnih, kgi, zcrih, mlaci).

The Writings (ctubim) 11 books in 8 pdfs: Psalms (thlim), Proverbs (miwli), Job (aiob). The Five Scrolls (wir hwirim, rut, aich, qhlt, astr), Daniel (dnial), Ezra-Nehemiah (yzra-nkmih) and Chronicles (dibri himim a & b) (3).

I hope to approach the first part of this project by presenting the Psalms. And where thereafter depends on too many factors to predict.

But I will begin with some introductory posts: first to the Hebrew letters and the musical signs, then to the music, then again to text and music together. There is an earlier introductory post here.