Biblical Studies Carnival 203

 Heather Anne Thiessen has produced a super carnival here. Seeing this effort is very encouraging. The Biblical Studies blogging is still going strong. 203 carnivals - since the first in March 2005 - that's coming up to 18 years! 

The Music of the Bible in 21 pdfs

I started my Hebrew Bible translation 17 years ago after attending a conference on the epistle to the Hebrews at St Andrews. In 2010 I discovered the music of the te'amim through a conference on the Psalms at Oxford. And I just kept going. I was built (theologically) for this reason: to combine database programming, music, and the words of the Hebrew Bible. There are lots of other things I was built for too but those are like everyone else's.

I have transcribed many hundreds of sections to an English underlay (lyrics) and have arranged several others. Where I have done the transcription, I have always found ways to get around the problems of writing music written for Hebrew with lyrics in English. And I have often found that the music questions my translation. I am convinced that the music is an essential component for translation, interpretation, and understanding. I should prove this. I wasn't sure I had time to finish a translation when I began. I am equally unsure I have time to set the entire underlay in English - but I know this will result in questioning my translation - so it is one method for ensuring that I don't leave anything out.

So this month I have collected the 929 chapter files, 4000 pages of music, into 21 pdfs - 5 for Torah, 8 for the prophets and 8 for the writings. 

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).

All names transcribed above are in SimHebrew. These are the same links as in the previous posts but here altogether in one place. 

My second talk with chatGPT

I am getting to like this robot. It could be very useful for writing posts :). It's a whole lot easier than searching libraries but so far the robot is a little short on specifics. It wrote when I asked: "I am able to adapt and improve over time based on the interactions I have with users. The more I am used, the more I learn from the questions and responses of the people I interact with. However, my learning is not permanent and it is not stored as it is with humans, so if my parameters are updated or reset, I will lose the knowledge acquired during the interactions. Additionally, my learning ability is limited by the architecture and the parameters of the model."

Here is a conversation on follow up questions by me. The feedback from the bot helped me refine my questions. I think this is an essential aspect of clarification of learning. Does it help me formulate probabilities for the application of Bayes theorem to the breakthrough which Haïk-Vantoura developed for the te'amim? What do you get if you ask similar questions to the bot?

Bob: A couple of days ago, you noted that The evidence to support Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" is limited and some scholars argue that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that the accentuation system of the Masoretic texts was used as a musical notation. Would you please tell me which scholars support the theory and which do not.

Bot: I apologize, but I am not able to provide a list of specific scholars who support or do not support Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" as my knowledge cut-off was 2021, and this information may have changed since then. Additionally, the field of biblical studies is vast, and there are many different perspectives and opinions among scholars on this topic. It would be best to consult with academic experts in the field for more specific information and the most up-to-date research on this topic.

Bob: Thank you

Bot: You're welcome. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Bob: What can you tell me about coded compared to analogue musical notations, e.g. solfege (coded do-re-mi) vs modern staff notation (analogue)?

Bot: Coded musical notation and analogue musical notation are two different ways of representing music.

Coded notation, such as solfege, uses a set of specific symbols or words to represent different pitches or notes. In solfege, for example, the notes of the major scale are represented by the syllables "do", "re", "mi", "fa", "sol", "la", and "ti". Coded notation is often used as a tool for teaching and learning music, as it can help to break down the elements of a piece of music and make it easier to understand and analyze.

Analogue notation, such as modern staff notation, uses a combination of symbols and lines to represent different pitches and rhythms. The five lines and four spaces of the staff correspond to different pitches and notes are represented by different symbols such as notes, and rests.

Analogue notation is often more precise and detailed than coded notation, allowing for greater nuance and expression in the music. While it can take longer to learn and read, it can represent much more complex and intricate music.

It's worth noting that both type of notations have their own benefits and drawbacks, and it is not necessarily a case of one being better than the other. It depends on the context and the purpose of the notation.

Bob: Given that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" is a coded rather than an analogue system, what can you tell me about other ancient coded systems for information?

Bot: There are many examples of ancient coded systems for information, from different cultures and time periods. Here are a few examples:

The Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artifact, contains inscriptions in three scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The inscriptions are the same text, and the Greek inscription served as the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

The Maya civilization of Mesoamerica developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was used to record historical, religious, and astronomical information. The Maya script was deciphered in the 20th century, and it is now understood to be a syllabic script.

The Linear B script was used by the Mycenaean civilization of ancient Greece. It was discovered in the early 20th century and was deciphered in the 1950s. The script is believed to be used primarily for administrative and economic records.

The Enigma machine was a coded machine used by the German military during World War II to encrypt and decrypt messages. The machine was eventually broken by Polish and British codebreakers, which played a significant role in the war effort.

These are just a few examples of ancient coded systems for information, but there are many more examples from around the world. Coded systems have been used throughout history to protect sensitive information or to make it more difficult for others to understand the information being conveyed.

Bob: Please elaborate on the precursors to the modern musical staff notation. How did the analogue system evolve?

Bot: The modern musical staff notation has evolved over many centuries, with several different precursors that led to its development.

One of the earliest known forms of musical notation is the neumes, which were used in the Middle Ages to indicate the general shape of a melody. Neumes were notated above the text of the chant and provided a visual representation of the melody, but did not indicate the exact pitch or rhythm. They were primarily used in religious music, and were used in the Catholic Church to notate the chants of the liturgy.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the system of Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian music theorist, was developed. He used a system of four lines, with the notes represented by the syllables of a hexachord (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la), which later evolved into the solfeggio system. This system was a big step forward as it allowed to notate the melodies with a more precise pitch, but it still didn't indicate the rhythm.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the modern staff notation began to take shape with the development of a system called mensural notation. This system used a five-line staff, with different shaped notes indicating the duration of each note. Additionally, this system introduced the concept of time signatures and barlines, which allowed for the precise notation of rhythm.

It was not until the 15th century with the invention of the printing press that the modern musical staff notation became widespread. The invention of the printing press allowed for the mass production of sheet music, and the modern staff notation was standardized across Europe.

This process was not linear, different regions and schools had different notation systems, and it took centuries for the notation system to be standardized. The development of the modern musical staff notation was a gradual process, shaped by the contributions of many musicians, theorists, and composers over the centuries.

Bob: So solfege followed the development of neumes by a few centuries, but neumes would not work for the annotation of text. It would follow that the mapping of ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la to silluq, merkha, tifha, atnah, munah, mahpakh and ti to galgal (an octave lower), would require both imagination and the passage of time to develop such a system. I wonder what precursors were there the process.

Bot: You are correct that the development of the solfeggio system followed the development of neumes by several centuries. The solfeggio system was developed as a way to notate the pitch of a melody more precisely than neumes, which were primarily used to indicate the general shape of a melody. The solfeggio system used a set of specific syllables, such as "ut", "re", "mi", "fa", "sol", and "la" to represent different pitches.

As for the mapping of the solfeggio system to the Hebrew notation system, it's possible that the process was influenced by the development of the solfeggio system and other musical notation systems of the time. It's also possible that the idea of using a coded system to represent musical pitches was influenced by the use of coded systems in other areas, such as the Rosetta Stone, which used different scripts to represent the same text.

It's worth noting that the deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" proposed by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura is a subject of much debate among scholars, and the exact origins and precursors of the system are not well understood. Some scholars have argued that the system was developed by the Masoretes, a group of Jewish scribes who worked on the texts of the Hebrew Bible during the Middle Ages, while others have suggested that it may have been developed earlier. Without clear historical evidence, it is hard to say for sure what precursors were there for the process.

The Writings - with the music of the te'amim

And finally, The Writings, Psalms (thlim), Proverbs (miwli), Job (aiob), (3 'books of truth' - so named after their first letters a-m-t, aleph for Job, mem for Proverbs, and taf for the Psalms), The Five Scrolls (5 wir hwirim, rut, aich, qhlt, astr), Daniel (dnial), Ezra-Nehemiah (yzra-nkmih) and Chronicles (dibri himim a & b) (3). 1123 pages.

Total pages in this form, single line of music for recitation: 4,156 comprised of Torah 1,032, Prophets 2,001, Writings 1,123. My 6000 page guess in 2013 was over estimated by 50%.

And now, having done these simple collations, who knows, I might think of something more substantial to do, like going through my translation again, a full pass. Anyone game for such an exercise? I suspect it is a multi-year effort.

The Latter Prophets - with the music as derived from the accents

The Latter Prophets - Isaiah (iwyihu), Jeremiah (irmihu), Ezekiel (ikzqal), and The Twelve (tri ywr: howy, ioal, ymos, yobdih, ionh, mich, nkum, kbquq, xpnih, kgi, zcrih, mlaci).

You can tell from these how relatively big the job would be to sing the work from beginning to end. The Twelve give us 209 pages of music. The latter prophets in total are 979 pages in this form. Torah is 1032 pages. The former prophets are 913 pages. I had guessed years ago that the whole might be 6000 pages - slightly too high I think. Tell you in the next post.

My first conversation with a Robot

 What did it do to me! Here is the conversation: What is gong on behind the scenes?

Explain the deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura

Answer: Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura was a French musician and musicologist who proposed a deciphering key for understanding the musical notation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She argued that the notation in the scrolls represented an ancient form of Hebrew cantillation, a system of chanting used in Jewish liturgical music. Her key proposes that the marks in the scrolls correspond to specific melodic patterns and rhythms, rather than just indicating the vowels in the text. Her work, however, has been met with mixed reactions, with some scholars supporting it and others criticizing it for lack of evidence.

My response: There are a number of problems with your response: 1 - not the Dead Sea Scrolls; 2 - nothing to do with vowels; 3 - you have missed the most important item, the mapping of accents below the text to a modal scale.

Answer: I apologize for the inaccuracies in my previous response. You are correct that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key does not pertain to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but rather to the biblical texts of the Masoretic tradition. She proposed that the system of accentuation used in the Masoretic texts, called "ta'amei ha-mikra" or "trop" in Hebrew, represented a musical notation for chanting the Bible. She claimed that this notation mapped the accents found in the biblical texts to a specific modal scale, allowing the texts to be sung according to ancient melodies. Her work is still debated among scholars and has not yet been widely accepted.

Then I asked: What do you think is the likelihood that the ancient musicians could understand both a scale and a mapping of signs in a text to that scale?

Answer: It is possible that ancient musicians had the ability to understand both a musical scale and a system of signs that mapped the text to that scale. However, it is also important to note that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key is still debated among scholars and has not yet been widely accepted. The evidence to support the theory is limited and some scholars argue that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that the accentuation system of the Masoretic texts was used as a musical notation.
It's also worth mentioning that the people in ancient times had a different way of learning, educating and understanding music than we do today. They were not only trained in singing and playing instruments but also in understanding the meaning and context of the text, the culture and tradition of the society and the religious significance of the music. They had a holistic approach to music, thus the possibility of understanding a scale and a mapping of signs in a text to that scale is quite high.

I am trying to figure out who is teaching whom? And what if I taught the bot something - would it incorporate that memory into conversations with others? I was testing to see if I could get it to help me define my likelihoods better.

The Former Prophets - with the music per the Haïk-Vantoura deciphering key

Of the books of Tanach, there are five in Torah and four in the Former Prophets, three + twelve in the Latter Prophets, three + five + three in the Writings. Does that add up to 24 -- 5+4+3+1+11 - whew - yes.

Music by book is easier to handle than 929 chapters. (All the chapters are available in pdf and music XML forms here.) But you really can't hear it all at once. Everything has to be relearned with the music. (Tch... and you worked so hard at memorization of inadequate wordy translations!)

So here are the former prophets - Joshua (ihowy), Judges (wop'tim), Samuel (wmual a & b), and Kings (mlcim a & b).

More to follow -