Some notes on the first 7 verses of Job 38

There is a reason that I have limited my comments in my Music of the Bible series. The complexity of this presentation of the Bible, through the work of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura will take many lifetimes to critique. I worked through the first dozen or so verses of Job 38. This post is only on the first 7. Many more words could be written than I have time to absorb or you time to read.

I began with a look at recurrence patterns. The final recurring word in the chapter focuses the single long passage as leading towards wisdom. I can do a maximum of 40 roots at once, so I had to eliminate a few (two of which do follow wisdom, but these join chapter 38 to a new section on animals that continues in chapter 39). There were no circular structures that were highlighted. The chapter comes across with force. 

Job 38 -- beginning

I used the prose default mode in verse 1 to distinguish the narrator from the actors. There is never a rest note in the narrator's introductory snippets until chapter 33 when the narrator comes on stage to introduce Elihu. And there, the narrator speaks in poetry. 

Verse 2: Who is this? begins the  speech on the high C with the qadma ornament carrying the tessitura even higher. This verse through its opening note connects the speech to the prior speeches. It has no mid verse rest. Verses three and four are traditional poetry with mid verse rest points. Verse three approaches the subdominant from the B, and verse four approaches from the g. 

Verse 4: Where were you when I founded Earth? Notice it is founded, not created. יָסַד is architectural: laying foundations, establishing stability, setting something so it can bear weight.

Not 'What do you know?' but 'Where were you?' Before any claim to discernment, there must be a place from which discernment could arise. בִּינָה is the ability to distinguish, to perceive relations, to tell one thing from another within a structure.

'Make it clear' is an invitation. הַגֵּד is imperative, but does not require silence from Job. It is not saying that humans know nothing, or that inquiry is illegitimate, or science futile. It is saying that wisdom begins with acknowledging where one stands, foundational ordering precedes explanation. 

Verse 5: Who set her measure? For you know.
Or who stretched out on her a line? 

We measure. We may even measure well -- and do intricate projects like the Webb Telescope. But, as is ironically implied, it is a philosophical puzzle that measurement is possible within reality. Why is it that physics can be described by equations. And we know our knowledge is limited by the probability distributions of the quantum fields. We are not mechanism and neither is creation.

Job 38 -- a place to pause for a moment

On what were her sockets sunk? I am moved by this image. It is very carefully stated. One must not translate sockets as pillars as though we were a construction project. The word for socket (adn -- close to the same letters as in Adonai) occurs twice outside of Torah, the sections in Exodus on the building of the tabernacle and the continuation in Numbers. In the building of the tabernacle it occurs 51 times. With its usage here, the earth becomes a holy place, just as the beloved of the Song is holy in the description that also uses this word socket.

Song 5:15

Who instructed her corner stone? The corner stone (אֶבֶן פִּנָּה) is not just structural. That word pnh is multifaceted. The corner stone, the facing stone, aligns walls, determines orientation, governs coherence. And yet the verb is יָרָה to instruct, to teach, to throw, or cast. If the cornerstone is 'nstructed' then, as science requires of creation: order becomes intelligible, coherence is sensible, alignment is reliable, but the instruction is more than 'ours'. We must align ourselves to the stone that faces us. But we did not instruct it. These verses are a revelation of the conditions of knowing. And we do know, in part.

The music is restrained. Apart from the revia-mugrash (which I call tuba announcing the return to the tonic), there are no ornaments. There are no verses from verses 2 to 11 starting on a pitch other than the tonic, i.e. no explicit verse connections as there are later in the chapter. I am still looking for some clues as to why some verses approach the tonic from below and why some from above. I also ask why some verses return gently to the tonic, some without tuba, some with, and others (in poetry only) move from B to e -- munach to silluq.

3. e B A, tuba e.
4. e B g A, tuba, f# e.
5. e B g B A, C e g B e.
6. e g B A, f# tuba, B e.
7. e g B A, tuba, f# e.

Verse 7 lifts us from support to celebration, from grounding to witness. That's why we love the beauty of mathematics and science and the order of creation. It's not important that it is big, but that it is ordered both in the infinitesimally small and enormously large, and even in the infinities of the real number system. And we should be encouraged.

People say the Word is written. But note the absence of the word socket from most of the books of the Hebrew canon. Part of reading with comprehension is to discern what is not written.

We can face the questions and sing the music. Someone should mount this stage play. The book with the music for every verse is available here. 

Words, words, words

I remember trying to write to my grandchildren. Words are plentiful but it seems that a great cloud of related words is required to carry sense from one person to another. My brother maintained a demand for defining your terms in conversation. This kind of precision is impossible. One cannot encode words like trust and truth. The closest we get is in science and mathematics, but we know now that at the base of reality, there is not a bunch of little balls in a billiard game where any degree of determinism can be applied with ultimate certainty.

Hence the need for a canon with which to measure our words. A canon is a body of tradition and text in which some group of humans places their trust. It is the Greek word for measure from which we also get our word 'cane'.

The conclusion is that words are part of a semantic field. Like electrons, they are neither particle nor wave but both. Words live and have their sense in a semantic field, just as electrons and photons exist in an electromagnetic field. 

Hebrews 1:1-4 from the Hebrew of Ezekiel Margoliouth

You might not have been expecting this. In the mid-1800s, Ezekiel Margoliouth revised an earlier Hebrew New Testament and added cantillation (See here for the information on Hebrew translations of the New Testament).

In this post I have put the first four verses of the Epistle to the Hebrews into my database as an experiment in translating from the Hebrew into English. I have conformed the translation to the concordance rules I used for my translation of Tanach. I am curious as to how the Hebrew works for me, and how the cantillation patterns compare with those of Tanach.

(Please see earlier posts like this one if you are not aware of the deciphering key I am using. Basically, the accents under the text map consistently and unambiguously to a diatonic scale. Each one defines the recitation pitch until the next one is seen. The accents over the text define ornamentation relative to the current recitation pitch. The entire Hebrew Bible is a love song.)

         Hebrews 1:1 In diverse modes and in several ways, spoke God present to our ancestors through the prophets,

Cantillation: The music in the first verse has no atnah. There is a breath invited, but no mid-verse cadence on the subdominant, A. The composer immediately goes beyond pure announcement to a heightened emotion on the C. The remainder of the phrase leading to the tonic seems typical but it isn't. Only two verses in Tanach end with e c d e g# e (silluq-darga-tevir-silluq-tifha-silluq). 

If we eliminate the tonic (silluq), 361 verses end with c d g# e. The same additional metegs (a mark identical to the tonic silluq but applying to pronunciation and not to the music) interfere with the melodic line as I have pointed out before. There is of course no earlier or later version to compare with, so I suggest that the metegs be ignored (if you can tell the difference between silluq and meteg -- difficult since they are the same mark). Just continue on the preceding recitation note. So the tonic, e, in bar 4 is likely not needed and should continue on the B until the last syllable of elohim. 

Translation: Curious that pnh (bold words are in SimHebrew - a transcription that is reversible between square text and Roman characters) in the form lpnim (bar 5-6) glossed above as present is also the word for face, and the preposition before. Hebrew like English can use this word in both a spatial and a temporal sense. I'm told the Greek πάλαι is purely temporal. 

Theological-scientific-aside: The Hebrew language can sense the wholeness of space-time. Corner is also a gloss for pnh. Remember that song -- 'you in your small corner' -- a place in space-time where we face things.

Hebrews 1:2 and in these last days he has spoken to us through the son whom he set to possess the whole,
by means of whom he made also the aeons,

they look like qadma

C: The music is typical except for the typing of the accents in bar 3 which should, I think, be pashta rather than qadma, so slurred C-D-C-D rather than D-C-D-C as is written above. A double qadma occurs only twice in Tanach - Deuteronomy 12:30 and Esther 3:13. The closing contour, A, B, g#, f, e is used over 800 times in the prose sections of Tanach. The last three notes (g, f, e) are used over 8,000 times in the prose, only twice in the poetry. Margoliouth will not have used poetic te'amim at all in the NT.

T: This son is without an article in the Greek, so the word seems indefinite but the role of the son is clarified. In Greek the lack of an article says: pay attention, you do not know of whom you are hearing yet. In the Hebrew, the translator has included the article (בַּבֵּ֔ן). So the English from the Hebrew reads the son. You may capitalize son if you like. Jesus is our peer. Will we become his?

What is Hebrew teaching about the nature of that word aeon (הָעוֹלָמִים) that is derived from what is hidden or obscure, (one of several senses of עלם)? English aeon is directly derived from the Greek of this verse τοὺς αἰῶνας (tous aiōnas). I am reminded of Qohelet 3:11.

The whole he has made beautiful in its time, even the obscurity (עלם )he has given in their heart without which the human would not find out the doings that this God has done from beginning and to conclusion.

I find this verse from Qohelet positive, even foundational for science. The human is motivated to find out. And we can do it -- see the Webb telescope for instance. As a colleague in conversation put it: "The verse affirms a God-given impulse to investigate, to probe creation in reverence. The Webb telescope is, in that sense, a part of Qohelet’s fulfillment -- humanity gazing further into the aeons, haʿolamim (the hidden ages)."

Aside: So it is that we now can look back in time ourselves. This is a concept we could not have understood without special relativity.

Returning to the third and fourth verses of Hebrews 1. 

Hebrews 1:3 in that he is the brilliance of his glory and the image of his being, lifting up the whole by his prevailing word,
as he achieved in himself the acquittal from our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Greatness of the heights; 

C: Tarsin (the shake in bar1) is followed by munach, high C (as in bar 2), 608 times in the Hebrew canon. Eighteen verses begin with telisha-gedola followed by tarsin with the tonic as reciting pitch followed by the dominant as reciting pitch (munach).

These are the first four verses I have looked at with cantillation in the NT, so I have no idea how often this particular composer uses this motif. Of course, he would not recognize the trope that I use. And I do not understand the thought process underpinning the music of the trope in ancient times. All I know is that the deciphering key that I use -- developed in the last century by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura -- makes the trope much more transparent to me as a musician than any other rendition I have heard.

T: Brilliance (zhr) is a late word used rarely in Tanach, twice in Daniel and once in Ezekiel. In himself is the word for bones. This is another flexible Hebrew stem with several senses and uses. (The link is to the concordance where you can find all my translation choices, Hebrew roots and glosses.) Hebrew commonly uses עֶצֶם (yxm) metaphorically for essence or selfhood.

Hebrews 1:4 and thus he became a goodness beyond that of the messengers,
in proportion to how he came to possess a name surpassing above theirs.

C: The contour of the music of verse 4 to the atnah (bar 5) is shared by 811 verses. The contour is unique from the atnah to the final e. 14 verses (in Tanach) share the last 6 bars in shape. 75 verses share the last 5 bars. 284 verses share the shape of the last 4 bars. 

T: In Hebrews 1:4, I want to recall the good of Genesis 1. Genesis 1 never says the word better. I tend to follow the French Proverb: Le meilleure est l'ennemie du bon. The sentence in these four verses is a concise statement of how God in Christ bears the good of creation. 

Theological reflection: As the Son, Jesus speaks to us of the will of God to mercy and compassion towards others. Modern physics reminds us that we inhabit a reality marked by openness rather than mechanical certainty, a kind of cloud of unknowing in which choices matter. Yet this indeterminate world is upheld, lifted up, by the prevailing (gbr) word, the valiant child who gave himself for the life of the world (ylm). (cf. Job 3 -- Perish! day when I was born, and the night promising pregnancy of a valiant (gbr) child.) The phrase (hrh gbr) in Job is unique in Tanach.

If so, the question is whether we grow into the responsibility that belongs to the ages (ylmim) to come. Participation rather than domination seems to be the mode of this rule. And you will remember that 'only sign', Jonah. His story asks whether we are willing to share in that mercy, or whether we resist the generosity by which God keeps the world alive.

The marks of taste in the Hebrew Bible - a review of ornaments

First example: another verse about the tongue  

4 They have sharpened their tongues like a snake,
heat of a viper,
under their lips. Selah. (1-2-4-1)

ד שֽננ֣ו לשונם֮ כֽמו־נ֫ח֥ש
חמ֥ת עכש֑וב
ת֖חת שפת֣ימו סֽלה

There are two accents on the first word. On the first syllable, the silluq (שֽ) is explicit. On the second syllable, the reciting note moves to the fifth, B, using the accent munah (נ֣).

The second word contains one accent on the last syllable, the tsinnor, a turn leading into the next word. The tsinnor marks the stress and indicates the melisma (ם֮). 

The third and fourth words are joined by maqqef, and therefore are treated as one word. It contains three accents. The first, silluq. draws the reciting note down to the tonic, e. The word drawing down the recitation to the tonic would not have an accent since it is joined to the next word, but an emphasis will be heard from the music.

The second accent is ole (נ֫) followed by merkha, f#. These two together form the cadence on the supertonic.  We know this word from Genesis 3 (וְהַנָּחָשׁ֙) is accented on its last syllable, so it gets accented on both its syllables by the music here. This gives the performer some material to work with. 

The second line with its two words, moves the reciting note from the supertonic to a subdominant. These segments can be very short. 

As in the previous example, there are only accents under the text from this point on. You can sing the music here (Psalm 140, verse 4).

A second example to see some remaining accents.

There are not many that occur after the atnah. This one from Psalm 53 had two revia-mugrash -- I was surprised and checked it against the Aleppo codex. Only one there. There is never more than one in a verse.

ב א֘מ֤ר נב֣ל ב֭לבו א֣ין אלה֑ים
הֽ֝שח֗יתו והֽתע֥יבו ע֝ול א֣ין עֽשה־טֽוב

Word 1 - two syllables (sounds like charades) two accents -- so both syllables get stress, especially with the zarqa lengthening the first syllable. The mahpakh moves us to the high C, the sixth degree of the scale and the highest reciting pitch. (zarqa followed by mahpakh 'zar,C' is common, over 100 instances in the psalms).

Word 2 moves to the fifth (ב֣) on the munah, then on word 3 to the third degree of the scale on the tifha (ב֭), then back to the fifth on word 4 and to the rest note A on the last syllable of the fifth word.

Line 2 illustrates the ornaments. First word has three accents, the silluq moves the phrase to the tonic, then the revia-mugrash is sung relative to the tonic. This is not an infrequent occurrence. I found 12 instances in the current list of phrase forms that I posted here. Look for 'e ger-rev' with the find feature of your browser. The revia and geresh a syllable apart from each other still constitute the revia-mugrash, announcing the last phrase of the verse. But not all may be found this way since e or f# may separate the ger from the rev as in 'ger,e rev'. This finds another 13.

Word 2 appears to have more accents than it needs. The reciting pitch is already on e so there is no need to repeat it. But emphasis may be the issue. Then we have another geresh, (ע֝) on the third word of line two, then back to the dominant, B, munah, then an emphatic finish with both parts of the last lexical word emphasized.

A third example

א תפל֗ה לד֫ו֥ד
שמע֤ה יהו֨ה צ֗דק הקש֥יבה רנת֗י האז֥ינה תפלת֑י
ב֝ל֗א שפת֥י מרמֽה

Line 1 begins on e with a revia (ל֗) over the first word third consonant, followed by ole veyored as in example 1. Both of these are on the tonic e, so rising from e a fourth to A and back to e then to f#.

The section above from f# to A is one of the longest: seven words. The accents do not divide the text. The sense of the words divides the text. The accents say how to implement the decision. This is music, not a rigid decomposition of the text which is already grammatically clear. The first accent (ע֤ mahpach) moves the reciting note to C. The next accent above the text is qadma (ו֨). The revia (צ֗) may be followed by a breath. It is not a cadence, but it may invite a breath. Similarly the same accent on the taf. The tifha moves the reciting note to g, and the atnah to A -- these always behave the same way.

The final section has the revia-mugrash as in the second example followed by a descent to the merkha (f#) and then the silluq (tonic, e). 

This is from Psalm 17.

David Mitchell in his book, The Songs of Ascent, notes "I do not suggest that the following reconstructions are one hundred percent correct. Science proceeds by hypotheses, not certainties." (Chapter 13). I echo him when I say that the reconstructions of the psalms that I have presented in the last two months are not 100% perfect. Even the statistics I have provided are subject to change if there is new information on the correctness of the text. But the song is close and I think it would be recognized by an ancient musician.

Mitchell has a different implementation of the ole veyored. His makes it a fixed descending scale ending on the f#. This solves the problem of the ole occurring on a mahpakh, but it is possible that the mahpakh in these instances is just wrong. (I should check these in Aleppo!) It would not be difficult to make such an error as we have seen for the hundreds of variations in the WLC I have corrected from the earliest text we have.

Hurry up please, it's time

 Murder, rape, and war in a love song? What kind of a song is this? I have seen that it is possible to consider the Bible in its original tongue. Not that I am any sort of an expert at languages or translation, but that at least it is possible to look at the problem of this religious history as if it were a puzzle of a few hundred thousand words.

I have done this. And I found out a few things. And I hope to find more. Because the reality of love … - a very difficult work it is to exercise love -- I am not good at it. But this reality is possible and worthwhile and a presence worth knowing. It appears that such a reality is not possible without the aforementioned troubles in my first question.

I doubt that I can get from song to theology, and from theology to practicality, and from practicality to healing, and from healing back to a song of thanksgiving. But perhaps the song of the Hebrew Bible was meant for just such a time as this. This time of failure of humanity on so many levels.

I don't want to leave you to imagine the failures. I am thinking of the war in Ukraine instigated by the dictator Putin, and the oligarchs who support this mechanism called Russia. And I am considering the state of war between the brothers who have grown from Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, and Isaac, Rebecka, Esau, Edom, Rachel, Leah, and Bilhah, Zilpah, and Jacob, called Israel. Like Cain and Abel, it is a war between brothers. And I am thinking of the failure of self-governance that is clear in all the lands of the earth. There are some responsible leaders, but there are many for whom the grasping of power is paramount and even in so-called democratic lands, the failure of truth in the media is evident. And I am thinking of the report from the UN on the state of climate change. Read it here if you haven't.

Genesis 4:13

And Cain said to Yahweh, Greater is my iniquity than I can bear.
יג וי֥אמר ק֖ין אל־יהו֑ה גד֥ול עונ֖י מנשֽא	7 7		ig viamr qin al-ihvh gdol yvoni mnwoa

[I will use my own translation for the Hebrew songs I include, together with the words in square text with the musical accents as well as SimHebrew, the full text in Latin characters.]

Will Adam be stillborn? Will Eve never emerge from the rib? The Wind of God still broods over our chaos in this bruised world. The birth of a people who are able to show mercy rather than revenge is not impossible. The work required is a work of death and new life in that life-giving Spirit, self-giving rather than grasping.

I never did translate the Greek of the New Testament, so my memory of its words is traditional-- when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Hurry up please, it's time.

The bar will soon be closing for me. My background is Christian. I even understand fundamentalism. I know fear and shame. I cannot agree with much of the complex religious past that is part of me. It takes time, elapsed time, to learn. There are so many questions. But I had a thought one day, sometime in the not too distant past in the later stages of my zeal, saying to me: How can you say you know me when you don't know my language? It was then that I stopped reading the New Testament and began to translate for myself the One called Old. The Old Word has kept me going for 20 years now. I used technology to control my translation and wrote programs to decode the music and connect the defective language of the Leningrad codex (that's the pointed text) to the modern text with full spelling. I still don't know Hebrew well but I understand now that along with its structure and wordplay, the whole scripture is to be heard as music.

No one is required to read in Hebrew. It is fun but not mandated. I like puzzles. But we should know that the word of God is not an exercise in getting the abstract truth right. Love is action directed to the good of another. If I love my fellow human, I will take actions that are for our shared good. I heard on the news tonight about a political local leader accused of being anti-vax. And he said, I'm not anti-vax, just anti-mandate. Well, that's just bad science. I don't want that attitude being in charge. And it ends up being unjust. I am also trained in science. Vaccines only work if herd immunity is reached. Love says, I get a vaccine not just for me but for my neighbour also. There are going to be exceptions, but they must be rare. A 50% vaccination rate will not stop a bug. I could go on about the homeless - but enough.

We are not ultimately individuals. It would be impossible for me even to communicate with you without the support of a host of other people who are manufacturing devices and their accompanying software that have allowed us to hear each other and the music. So with many of our actions, a mandate is needed to achieve the desired end. The mandate helps us overcome our resistance to truth. Mandates are only practice however. We will need much stronger tools to actually work the reality of love.

News is not necessarily good news! The good news is that the love that works for another's good is possible and desirable even in the face of death. I could try and formulate this, but it would not get the Old Song to be heard for its own sake. My words would not substitute. But perhaps I can put together a selection of the Old Song that would work the work of love for a moment.

This music is going to attempt to teach about that mystery that goes by the three letter word g-o-d. What is this g-d like? I really have to stop talk and start to sing. But - I am voiceless for the most part these days, so I have to rely on musical scores and performances whether live or mechanical. And I have to tell the story. It's a good story. Here's hoping I have time.

No theology should be unaccompanied. So here is the beginning:

Genesis 1:1-3 - not too much at once please - the first 22 bars of the song.

1 In the beginning of God's creating, the heavens and the earth,
א בראש֖ית בר֣א אלה֑ים א֥ת השמ֖ים וא֥ת האֽרץ	8 9		a brawit bra alohim at hwmiim vat harx
2 when the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the face of the abyss, and the wind of God brooded over the face of the waters,
ב והא֗רץ הית֥ה ת֙הו֙ וב֔הו וח֖שך על־פנ֣י תה֑ום ור֣וח אלה֔ים מרח֖פת על־פנ֥י המֽים	19 16		b vharx hiith tohu vbohu vkowç yl-pni thom vruk alohim mrkpt yl-pni hmim
3 then said God: Let there be light. And there was light.
ג וי֥אמר אלה֖ים יה֣י א֑ור וֽיהי־אֽור	9 3		g viamr alohim ihi aor vihi-aor

Excursus -- Hell for those enemies

 Extract from Seeing the Psalter, page 78

The opening psalms place some emphasis on fire and brimstone as punishment for the enemies.

you will set them as a fiery oven 
of the time of your presence
יהוה in his anger will swallow them
and fire will devour them

Speaking personally and subjectively, the Psalter draws me away from the traditional objectivized view of Hell. The traditional imagery for Hell is drawn in part from such psalms, but traditional Hell over-determines their intent. Jesus (Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:5) tells his disciples to fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell, and this fear has been transposed in our traditions to a fear of judgment after death or fear of an apocalyptic day of wrath (Dies Irae). The psalms speak to me about a present fear that knows the reality of psalms like 6 and 38, where the wrath being known now is faced. Then, as John 5:24 explains, we are past the judgment. The wrath endures but a moment (Psalm 30:6).

In Psalms 20 and 21, each of us, male and female, is to identify with the king. And the enemies which are destroyed in the second half of the psalm are our own self-destructive impulses. They are swallowed up in fire, but we, each, are saved and crowned and filled with joy not of our own making.

What is our heart’s desire? This is scarcely expressible, but when the gift is known, the receiver of such a gift recognizes that this was the prayer being prayed, as Paul says, the Spirit prays in us with groaning that can not be uttered (Romans 8:26). It would seem that we are not even aware of it.

Can such a claim be made with appropriate knowledge in a scientific age? The psalms are prayer. Prayer is not subject to the categories or assumptions of science. Its mode is subjective. Yet the unmeasurable and inexpressible is a truth even in science. If I tell you that you cannot know at the same time both the colour and the spin of an elementary particle, am I not expressing something oddly that is unmeasurable? Or if I speak of bosonic string theory in 26 dimensions focused on cubic Open String Field Theory in the presence of two parallel D24-branes,[1] as do doctoral students in science such as Longton, am I not speaking with metaphor? It seems to me that both disciplines, prayer and science, require appropriate inference from evidence, even when the evidence is inexpressible.

There are things that we can know but cannot pin down in so many words. What if, for the sake of example, the presence of יהוה was a real benefit and was sensed by faith. It has been said by many people that there is a reality to the experience of this presence of God. Are their words not to be counted as evidence? So the poet writes in Psalm 21, you have cheered him with the gladness of your presence.

Yet is the cost perceived? The next psalm will reveal that prayer and answer are not simple and that hell will be known personally by the beloved.

---

[1] Brane, short for membrane; 24 indicates the number of dimensions.

Biblical Studies Carnival 218

Who knew that
ChatGPT did birthday cakes
for Pentecost (via James McGrath)

EMITLAVINRACEMITLAVINRAC  

Phillip Long is, as always, looking for volunteers to compile a monthly Biblical Studies Carnival. If you would like to host a carnival, please contact Phil on Twitter (@Plong42) or via email (plong42@gmail.com).

Compiling a carnival is really fun. I had forgotten how much fun it is. As the month progresses, themes emerge. There are surprises. Who knows what it will be in advance? 

Thanks for tips via James McGrath @ReligionProf on Twitter, and Jim Davila on PaleoJudaica.com and the many scholars writing for TheTorah.com.

"The solution, then, is rupture with the in-between time and rescue of the long lost past, despite the human folly that has nearly destroyed everything in between." [spelling corrected]

Images - AI? - via Jennifer Guo

Hebrew Bible

מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן: Out of a “no” you hear a “yes.”? Idan Dershowitz on Leviticus 18. Martti Nissinen adds further suggestions for interpretive context as does Julia Rhyder.

Theodore Lewis on Piercing the name as attempted deicide.

The Hebrew language detective explores halva'ah and livui and the potential meanings of the name of Levi.

[Addendum] I should have included this record of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. Don Moffat's question of learning in context is: What is the Genre of the Book of Genesis. The lecture is from New Zealand, May 23/24 2024.

Guy Darshan explores the post-destruction editing of the text of Kings.

Daniel Vainstub writes "Jeremiah excoriates the Judahites for sacrificing babies to Baʿal at the Tophet, in a valley near Jerusalem." Read all about child sacrifice here -- from Canaan to Carthage.

Exodus 2:28 -- a "statute that is not good"?

James Tabor's word of the month is not. Not is here, Not is there, Not is nearly everywhere.

A linocut project by
Gabriel Oakes on Amos 8.
Note also the eggsegesis here.

Richard Beck on Psalm 48, warns the political faction of self-deception. He ends the month with Psalm 52 - under the rubric "you love evil instead of good".

Ian Paul takes apart the liturgical use of Psalms 95 and 100 among other canticles. "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about." (G.K. Chesterton)

Drew Longacre is calling for volunteer transcribers for the Psalms. 

A long shadow
Selwyn College Chapel.
Photo Thomas Allen.  

Jerome Van Kuiken on Mother's Day and the Ascension explained by Psalm 113.

John Hobbins posted in the Scriptura forum, a group of scholars in the midst of detailed study of the psalms, "bridging the gap between scholars and translators". Elizabeth Robar outlines the process in their May newsletter.

For Psalms Images and AI - Click through to see Stephen Cook's psalms class final project. (I am waiting for ChatGPT to write the music too. The bot reads and interprets MusicXML in a flash - without emotion, nuance or expressivity.)

The intertextual Bible, comparing psalms 2 and 59, notes there is no humor, no joyous laughter echoing from the heavens but rather laughter in derision. Unkind or real?

And here via David Koyzis you can hear Psalm 121. The Kodaly arrangement is worth the click too.

Douglas O'Donnell asks whether Job is historical. 

Was there really a man named Job?
Did he live in a land called Uz?
Was he perfectly righteous with a perfectly blessed life?
Did he in one day lose everything but his troublesome, unnamed wife?

Job 1:1 -- mimicking the music of Genesis 1:1

Bob MacDonald offers an introduction to the music of Lamentations 1:1 to display the theory of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's decoding of the te'amim. A little history of her own experience is linked here. His hope is that her work will cast a long shadow.

New Testament

Met Gala meets Biblical Studies

Bosco Peters continues his series on Mark in Slow Motion. He also critiques the latest NRSV for rendering θάλασσαν as either sea or lake.

Ian Paul welcomes the return to Mark "after being seduced by the beloved disciple".

Bill Heroman complains on Facebook that HJ scholars fail to engage narratology... 

Michael Kok notes that the Gospels are formally Anonymous: i.e. "the author is not named in any of the texts and the Synoptic Gospels are not presented as written from any character’s particular vantage point, and that they continued to circulate anonymously in some quarters in the first half of the second century."

Ian Paul offers some structural analysis of the Lord's Prayer.

Kurk Gayle and his students ponder art with AI and the last supper. 

What do you see? - check out the conversation on FaceBook.

James McGrath shares some photos of his visits to the places from when he was working on his book: Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist. ChatGPT finds James's scholarship innovative.

Andrew Perriman commenting on Acts 17, searches for a different sort of missional theology.

Steve Walton published his slides from a lecture in Alberta on Church planting in Acts.

Andrew Perriman is not convinced by the argument of Jacob Mortenson and Matthew Novenson that Romans 2 is addressed to a gentile.

Images via Jennifer Guo

Heather Thiessen on Romans 4 and Genesis 17 and Colossians 1:24-2:3.

Marg Mowczko: Submission & the Saviour in Ephesians 5 on Paul's paradoxical use of hypotassō.

Marg Mowczko on Lois and Eunice, Timothy's mother and grandmother.

Brian Small introduces a new commentary on Hebrews by Amy Peeler and posts Hebrews Highlights for April and May 2024

Jennifer Wright responds to Lynn Huber and Gail O'Day's Commentary on Revelation. "Where apocalyptic eschatology looks to the future to address a misperceived present, biblical commentary has looked to the past to correct a misperceived text."

Henry Neufeld asks about Beastly attributes.

Books and Reviews

Jacob J. Prahlow reviews Rebecca Idestrom's Show me Your Glory.

Via Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica- 

• a brief review of Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew by Jonathan Thambyrajah. 
• Also: Kazen & Roitto, Revenge, Compensation, and Forgiveness in the Ancient World. 
• And a report on Mark Lester's book: Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition "the Deuteronomic composition adapts the media aesthetics of ancient treaty tablets and monumental inscriptions to a story that is itself transformed into an artifact of the past".
• And among others, Smith, Luke was not a Christian. Joshua Paul Smith challenges the long-held assumption that Luke and Acts were written by a gentile. Biblical Interpretation Series, Volume 218.

Ayrton posts on Candida Moss's Os escritores fantasmas de Deus. Also on Stefano Salemi's A Linguistic-Theological Exegesis of Ezekiel as Môphēt.

AWOL posts on an open access book on the Apocalypse of Peter.

Clint Burnett reviews Adela Yarbro Collins. Paul Transformed: Reception of the Person and Letters of Paul in Antiquity.

Phillip Long reviews James D. Nogalski, The Book of Micah (NICOT). "Nogalski begins his forty-three-page introduction by observing that Micah originated in the eighth century B.C. but reflects editorial activity after 586 BC to clarify the blame for the destruction of Jerusalem."

Other

Nicola Denzey Lewis asks if the Gospel of Thomas is gnostic. Michael Kok has more questions about Secret Mark. James Tabor posts a lecture by Michael Stone on Armenian Apocryphal Texts. Oliver Parkes reviews Xavier Lafontaine, Hellénisme et prophétie. Les Oracles sibyllins juifs et chrétiens.

Brent Niedergall posts on the benefits of studying Ostraca. Marg Mowczko on Cerula and Bitalia in Catacomb Art. 

Jim Davila points us to the Hebrew Bible and its ruins -- how ruins have been viewed through history. Brent Nongbri reports on the length of papyrus sheets and dating of codices. James McGrath points out The borderscape project, "a multidisciplinary endeavor that investigates how the rise of the Egyptian state at the end of the 4th millennium BCE impacted and transformed the socio-spatial landscape of the First Nile Cataract region."

Peter Head asks if we should trust textual reconstructions. Ross McKenzie posts slides and a video on Science and Christianity - can we trust both?

Matt Page is starting a series on Noah films.

Michael Wilder speaks on the importance of music: To be human is to be musical.

Richard Beck shares some posts on mysterious soft enchantments. He also channels Jaques Ellul and his book Money and Power in several posts beginning here.

And Claude Mariottini, quoting the Terminator, promises "I'll be back". May he speak for the carnival also.

---

So -- are you ready to host a carnival? Contact Phil on Twitter (@Plong42) or via email (plong42@gmail.com).

My first question to ChatGPT-4o (May 25 -- too late for any last minute preparations!) was to ask for some suggestions for a BS carnival. I wonder if carnival composers will be replaced by AI. The first answer I got didn't include any links - but it sounded very intelligent. So I asked for some links and it searched four sites -- unfortunately they were not for May 2024 and several were behind a paywall. I asked it to try again - but the posts were still outside the date bounds that I gave it. O well, at least I am not being replaced this month. I guess I could work on my AI prompting skills. Copilot will report on random carnivals if you are searching.

James McGrath goes the distance with his ChatGPreachT module.

#Psalmtweet #Psalter 136:5

 Give thanks to Yahweh ...

No conflict with science here - plenty of responsibility required though.
No one could operate in an inconsistent creation.

לְעֹשֵׂ֣ה הַ֭שָּׁמַיִם בִּתְבוּנָ֑ה כִּ֖י לְעוֹלָ֣ם חַסְדּֽוֹ		5 For making the heavens with understanding, because forever is his kindness.
h lyowh hwmiim btbunh ci lyolm ksdo	9 6	l/ywh h/wmim bt/bvn\h ci l/yvlm ksd\v